On Tuesday (17th September), AAP National Convenor and outgoing Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal proposed the name of Atishi Marlena as his successor, while addressing a meeting of party MLAs. As per media reports, she was then elected as leader of the Delhi AAP Legislative Party. As she takes the oath of office later in the day, she will become the third women Chief Minister of Delhi, after Sushma Swaraj and Sheila Dixit. Overall, she will be the 8th CM of Delhi. However, the announcement of her name as the next Delhi CM has triggered massive outrage with netizens flagging her controversial past.
A large section of netizens and political leaders have expressed concerns about her appointment asking how can a woman whose parents wrote mercy pleas to save terrorist Afzal Guru and were in close proximity with separatists and anti-India elements be elected for such a sensitive and powerful post. Expressing grave concerns, they stressed that this is a sad day for Delhi adding that it could have security concerns for the nation.
Incidentally, the charge that her parents helped and tried to save the dreaded terrorist Afzal Guru, who carried out a terror attack on the Indian Parliament, had been validated by Atishi Marlena herself.
Citing her past track record including her parents’ mercy pleas to save Afzal Guru, estranged AAP Rajya Sabha MP Swati Maliwal expressed security concerns over her appointment.
She wrote, “Today is a very sad day for Delhi. Today, a woman whose family fought a long battle to save terrorist Afzal Guru from being hanged is being made the Chief Minister of Delhi. His parents wrote mercy petitions to the Honorable President to save terrorist Afzal Guru. According to him, Afzal Guru was innocent and was framed as part of a political conspiracy. Although Atishi Marlena is just a ‘dummy CM’, still this issue is related to the security of the country. May God protect Delhi!”
दिल्ली के लिए आज बहुत दुखद दिन है। आज दिल्ली की मुख्यमंत्री एक ऐसी महिला को बनाया जा रहा है जिनके परिवार ने आतंकवादी अफ़ज़ल गुरु को फांसी से बचाने की लंबी लड़ाई लड़ी।
— Swati Maliwal (@SwatiJaiHind) September 17, 2024
उनके माता पिता ने आतंकी अफ़ज़ल गुरु को बचाने के लिए माननीय राष्ट्रपति को दया याचिकाऐं लिखी।
उनके हिसाब से… pic.twitter.com/SbllONqVP0
Why did Atishi suddenly drop surname "Marlena" & choose "Singh" in campaigns?
— Sameer (@BesuraTaansane) September 17, 2024
Atishi's parents are hardcore communists who even named her "Marlena" after Marx & Lenin, they came out in support of Afzal Guru, the terr#rist who attacked our parliament !
But she wanted to hide… pic.twitter.com/4eb2wsaRGQ
Additionally, her mother’s sound byte to a news agency (AP) is also doing rounds on social media in which she could be heard saying that they are “unhappy” that Afzal Guru has been made an “escape goat”.
Communist parents of @AtishiAAP wrote mercy petitions to President of India to save terrorist Afzal Guru.
— Shashank Shekhar Jha (@shashank_ssj) September 17, 2024
Today, @ArvindKejriwal made Atishi Marlena as the next Chief Minister of Delhi.
Shameful.
pic.twitter.com/vX6lg5RE3g
BJP National Spokesperson Pradeep Bhandari said, “AAP government supports a person who’s family tried to stop Afzal Guru’s hanging. The people of Delhi will never accept Naxal supporters. AAP wants to show that it treats women as dummies and puppets as Saurabh Bharadwaj had been saying that the new CM would be a puppet CM… The people of Delhi will give a befitting reply to this…”
#WATCH | Delhi: On Delhi Minister Atishi to be the new Delhi CM, BJP national spokesperson Pradeep Bhandari says, "AAP government supports a person who's family tried to stop Afzal Guru's hanging. The people of Delhi will never accept Naxal supporters. AAP wants to show that it… pic.twitter.com/v83iFfoQIS
— ANI (@ANI) September 17, 2024
Atishi validated the charge that her parents wrote mercy pleas to save Afzal Guru
In an interview with AmarUjala, Atishi Marlena not only took cognizance of this charge, but she also defended her parents for their stance while trying to politically distance herself from their controversial decision to write mercy pleas for a terrorist.
Responding to a query on her parents’ decision, she said, “Look, I am not responsible for any political step taken by my parents. The responsibility and accountability is theirs and they are fully capable of saying what they want to say. I can say from my point of view that I was not in support of that step.”
In a detailed report on Atishi Marlena and her controversial track record as Delhi’s Education department, OpIndia had earlier pointed out that her parents Vijay Kumar Singh and Tripta Wahi are communists. Additionally, her parents belong to the group of ’eminent’ personalities who had cryingly written a mercy petition to the President of India against the death penalty for Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorist Afzal Guru.
Furthermore, Interestingly, Tripta Wahi is also closely linked to SAR Geelani, one of the notorious faces of anti-India politics and terrorist sympathiser. Her father Prof. Vijay Singh, Editor of a Communist propaganda website, Revolutionary Democracy, is part of ‘Stalin Society’, which has the sole mission of defending the revolutionary legacy of the former Soviet dictator Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin, who is responsible for around 20 million deaths in his lifetime.
Atishi Marlena had been suspiciously tight-lipped about the involvement of her family in anti-India movements and also regarding her communist credentials.
Meanwhile, it is also widely reported that her father gave her the surname in honour of his communist Gurus, Marx and Lenin – Marlena.
Who was Afzal Guru who was awarded capital punishment after an exhaustive judicial process?
On the 13th of December, 2001, the country suffered one of the most terrible terrorist attacks on Indian soil and certainly, the greatest assault on India’s democratic system. The Indian Parliament was attacked by Islamic terrorists. Six policemen and two Parliament Security Service personnel were martyred on that fateful day.
The investigation found that the main conspirator of the attack was Afzal Guru, a Pakistani-trained terrorist. After a prolonged judicial process, he was given the death penalty.
The Supreme Court had upheld Guru’s death penalty after appeals. The court had noted that there was clinching evidence against Afzal Guru regarding his nexus with the terrorists who carried out the “terrorist act of most diabolical nature”. “All evidence unerringly point to Afzal Guru, a key conspirator, who played an active role”, the Bench had said observing that by no standards his act could be termed innocuous.
