The 33-year-old man, who slapped Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in Delhi earlier this month, has said nobody asked him to attack the AAP leader as he regretted his action.

Suresh Chauhan, who owns a spare-parts business in Kailash Park, had attacked Arvind Kejriwal during his roadshow in New Delhi’s Moti Nagar area on May 4. He had climbed on the bonnet of an open SUV that Kejriwal was riding in and had slapped him before being beaten up by the party’s supporters.

“I don’t know why I slapped him (Arvind Kejriwal). I regret it,” Chauhan said, according to news agency ANI on Thursday.

Delhi Police had booked Chauhan under Section 323 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) for voluntarily causing hurt and said he had told them during preliminary interrogation that he was an AAP supporter. Police also claimed that Chauhan had become disenchanted with AAP due to the behaviour of its leaders and was further angered by “distrust of the party in the armed forces.”

The Aam Aadmi Party had rubbished the department’s claims and said that Chauhan’s wife said that he was a supporter of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Arvind Kejriwal later said that the attack against him was part of a “conspiracy by the BJP.” He said the assault was an insult to the people of the national capital.

Chauhan, however, claimed he is not affiliated to any political party.

“I am not affiliated to any political party. Nobody asked me to do this. Police did not misbehave with me. They only said what I did was wrong,” he said while speaking to ANI.

AAP leader and Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh has requested Delhi Police to conduct a thorough probe into the attack, one of many, on Arvind Kejriwal.

First Published: May 10, 2019 09:12 IST