On Thursday, Swati Maliwal, leader of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), was arrested for staging a dramatic protest outside the residence of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. The protest was in response to the growing garbage problem in Delhi, a matter that has been causing considerable frustration among the city’s residents.
In a bold and theatrical move, Maliwal, along with a group of her aides, collected garbage from the streets of Vikaspuri, a locality that has long been struggling with sanitation issues. The group gathered the waste in three mini trucks, which they drove to Kejriwal’s residence at 5 Ferozshah Road. Upon arriving, Maliwal and her team began unloading the garbage, and she flung a shovel full of the waste onto the ground in front of Kejriwal’s house.
The scene, captured in a video shared on the social media platform X, showed female Delhi Police officers swiftly intervening, lifting Maliwal, and attempting to remove her from the site. The footage quickly went viral, drawing attention to the tense situation. A group of women, also in attendance, held placards with the slogan, “Muskuraiye, AAP Delhi Mein Hain,” as they gathered near the scene of the protest.
Earlier in the day, Swati Maliwal had shared a video on X, showing herself and her aides collecting garbage from the streets of Vikaspuri. In her post, she emphasized the chronic nature of the garbage problem in the area, which has persisted for years. She expressed the frustration of local residents, stating, “There have been heaps of garbage on the roads in Vikaspuri for years. People are very angry. They are going to collect all this garbage and dump it at Kejriwal’s house.”
Maliwal further criticized the Delhi government’s handling of the city’s sanitation issues, stating, “The condition of the entire Delhi has deteriorated. The filth and stink that Delhiites face daily will be faced by Kejriwal ji today. The public is coming, Kejriwal ji, don’t be afraid.”
In response to the protest, security was heightened around Kejriwal’s residence. A senior police official confirmed that barricades were erected, and additional personnel were deployed to ensure the maintenance of law and order. “No one will be allowed to breach the law,” the officer assured.
After the protest, Swati Maliwal was briefly detained by the police before being released. She did not hold back in her comments, accusing Arvind Kejriwal of neglecting the sanitation crisis in Delhi. “Arvind Kejriwal has turned Delhi into a garbage dump,” Maliwal said. “There is garbage everywhere… People are facing a lot of problems… The garbage is in the sewage, on the roads, and outside people’s houses. No one is doing anything to tackle this problem.”
Maliwal made it clear that her protest was aimed at forcing Kejriwal to acknowledge the scale of the issue and take action. “Therefore, we went outside the residence of Arvind Kejriwal and dumped the garbage there to make him feel how the people of Delhi are feeling,” she explained. “So that his eyes get opened, and he works for the people.”
Refusing to back down, Maliwal further emphasized, “I work only for the benefit of the people of Delhi. I am not afraid of his goons or police. An FIR is also being lodged against me, but I am not afraid of them.”
The incident has reignited the debate over Delhi’s ongoing garbage management issues, a problem that has long plagued the city and remains a point of contention between the AAP government and its critics. With the protest gaining widespread attention, it remains to be seen how the Delhi government will address the concerns raised by the public and political figures like Swati Maliwal.
