After apology to Mathijia, Kejriwal apologises to Gadkari, Sibal; Jaitley may be next

Arvind Kejriwal AAP

Chief Minister of Delhi Arvind Kejriwal on Monday apologized to Union Minister Nitin Gadkari and senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal for comments made against them earlier.

Kejriwal called Nitin Gadkari as "one of the country's most corrupt politicians" in 2014. A defamation suit had been filed against the former after the comments.

Kejriwal had also made an allegation against Kapil Sibal, stating that the latter had a conflict in seeking a revision in a tax demand on Vodafone.

"I have nothing personal against you. I regret the same. Let us put the incident behind us and bring the court proceedings to a closure," Kejriwal wrote in a letter to Gadkari, according to an NDTV report.

After the apology, both Kejriwal and Gadkari submitted a joint application to withdraw the case.

This is the second apology that has been meted out by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader after he apologized to former Punjab minister Bikram Singh Majithia for bringing up his name in connection to Punjab’s drug problem.

The Akali Dal leader had filed a a defamation suit against Kejriwal in 2016 for the comment. "I hereby withdraw all my statements and allegations made against you and apologise for the same," wrote Kejriwal last week.

Following Kejriwal's apology to Majithia, AAP’s Punjab unit chief Bhagwant Mann resigned, followed by his deputy Aman Arora.

It is widely believed that the next person to be handed out an apology is Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. Jaitley had filed a defamation case against Kejriwal after the AAP leader accused him of corruption during his tenure as the chairman of Delhi's cricket board DDCA.

Jaitley had also demanded Rs 10 crore in damages for the defamatory allegations.

Sources who spoke to NDTV said that Kejriwal is looking to clear all the 33 defamation cases filed against him.