Nirbhaya's Mother Asha Devi To Contest Against Arvind Kejriwal On Congress Ticket? Her Response

Asha Devi, Mother of 2012 Delhi Gang-Rape victim Nirbhaya, on Friday rebutted reports of her taking a political plunge ahead of Delhi Assembly election and said that all she wants is justice for her daughter, who was brutally gang-raped in a moving bus in Delhi in 2012. Earlier, there were reports that she may contest 2020 Delhi Assembly elections from New Delhi constituency against Arvind Kejriwal as a Congress candidate.

"I have no interest in politics. I have not spoken to anyone in Congress. I only want justice for my daughter and execution of the convicts," new agency ANI quoted Asha Devi as saying.

The speculations of her fighting the Assembly polls against Kejriwal found more relevance after Delhi Congress campaign committee chairman Kirti Azad’s welcome tweet. Sharing a tweet from a journalist, Azad had written: "Welcome Asha Devi ji".

Delhi Congress chief Subhash Chopra also denied rumours of Asha Devi getting Congress ticket against Kejriwal but said that she was welcome in the party. "I saw a media report that Asha Devi (mother of 2012 Delhi gang-rape victim) will contest against Arvind Kejriwal on Congress ticket. There is nothing of that sort but she is welcome if she wants to join," ANI quoted Chopra as saying.

The development also came hours after her veiled attack on AAP that those who took part in protests in 2012 were now playing with her daughter's death for political gains. "Those who attacked my daughter are being given a thousand options, but we have no rights? Till now, I never talked about politics, but now I want to say that those people who held protests on streets in 2012, today the same people are only playing with my daughter's death for political gains," she had said.

BJP-AAP Trade Charges Over Delay In Hanging Of Convicts In Nirbhaya Case

On Thursday, Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia had said, "give us Delhi Police and law-and-order responsibility for two days and we will hang Nirbhaya convicts." The war of words erupted after Union minister Prakash Javadekar blamed the AAP government's "negligence" for the "delay" in the hanging of the four convicts, saying it took more than two-and-a-half years for the Arvind Kejriwal government to give notice to the rapists after the Supreme Court rejected their appeal against the death sentence in 2017.