India AAP minister’s car attacked
Minister Rakhi Birla’s car was attacked by mob damaging windscreen but she escaped unhurt.
Delhi’s newly-elected Aam Aadmi (common man) Party’s decision not to have security for its ministers experienced a serious challenge when one of its ministers was attacked as she was being driven in her car.
Attackers accosted and threw stones at the windscreen of the car in which Rakhi Birla, the minister for women and children, was being driven out after an event in her constituency on Sunday evening, reports said.
None of the occupants of the car, including the minister, was injured.
No one has been arrested so far and the police are yet to figure out who the stone-throwers were and why the minister was attacked.
Birla, the youngest minister in the cabinet at 26 years, however reportedly insisted she would not go for security and instead travel like any other Delhi citizen.
Reports quoting Birla said, “I will not take any security. This is a decision based on our principle. I am not scared and I will keep working for people’s welfare.”
Birla is the only woman minister in the Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP government which swept to power, making a dream debut in the recent Assembly elections to Delhi state.
Second attack on AAP
This is the second attack on an AAP leader. In June last, in a hit-and-run case, a potential aspirant for the Assembly contest Santosh Koli was killed when a car hit the two-wheeler she was riding.
The AAP government, in one of its first decisions after coming to power, said it would not sport red beacons on the cars of ministers – something that is seen as a prestigious symbol of power that ministers across the country have on their cars irrespective of which party they belong to.
The Kejriwal government has also rejected all police security, escort cars and other security paraphernalia, causing waves across the country and winning the admiration of common people all over.