New Delhi :
Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia on Wednesday served defamation notice to Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari and two others for accusing him of being involved in a ‘scam’ of Rs 2,000 crore in the construction of classrooms in government schools of the city. Tiwari, along with BJP's Leader of Opposition in Delhi Assembly Vijender Gupta and party MP Parvesh Verma, had sought the resignation of Sisodia, who is in-charge of the education department.
In his legal notice, Sisodia accused them of defaming him through "offending publications" based on "cooked up" allegations and sought their "unqualified" apology.
The Aam Aadmi Party's shared the court notice on micro-blogging site Twitter and tagged the three BJP leaders.
Responding to the post, Tiwari - BJP lawmaker from North East Delhi – said they "bow down" to Manish Sisodia's "pressure tactics".
“We refuse to bow down to your pressure tactics @msisodia, We will prove your corruption ... @BJP4Delhi stands by the people Of Delhi and will recover this enormous sum of taxpayers money. We will go to Lokayukta and The Courts (sic),” Tiwari tweeted.
Earlier, citing purported minutes of Delhi government's Finance Committee meeting in March 2018, Tiwari charged that the government built 366 nursery classrooms at an estimated cost of Rs 28.70 lakh for each of them.
"The minutes show an estimate of Rs 221.44 crore, which was revised to Rs 326.36 crore. The PWD was verbally authorised to complete the work pending formal approval," he said.
Meanwhile, the Delhi BJP has filed a police complaint in the alleged "scam" seeking a probe. Tiwari claimed the police has forwarded the complaint to the Anti-Corruption Branch of the Delhi government.
