New Delhi: The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Monday said the college degrees of Prime Minister Narendra Modi as shown by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Amit Shah and Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley were "fake and forged".
"The way Shah showed Prime Minister Modi's Bachelor and Master's degree was absurd. Shah and Jaitley are not God that they will bring any degree and the people of the nation will believe. The degrees shown by them are fake and forged," alleged AAP spokesman Ashutosh, while addressing reporters at a press conference.
"Foremost, the names in both the degrees are different; the name in the Bachelor's degree is 'Narendra Kumar Damodardas Modi', whereas in the Master's degree it is 'Narendra Damodardas Modi'. The BJP government is fooling us. How is that possible," asked the AAP spokesman.
"Further, the year (of passing) in the mark sheet and the degree are different. The degree bears 1978, whereas it is 1977 on the mark sheet; how is that possible," he asked, alleging that this is a crime.
"By forging degrees and presenting those forged degrees before the nation to fool the people to save Prime Minister Modi, Jaitley and Shah have committed a crime," he alleged.
Earlier, releasing his degrees, both Shah and Jaitley demanded an apology from the AAP supremo for his desperate attempts to turn a "blatant lie into truth".
Addressing a press conference, Jaitley and Shah said, "We are putting degrees of the Prime Minister, both degrees Bachelor of Arts from Delhi University and M.A. from Gujarat University, in the public domain," while urging the media not to entertain such petty and disgraceful news.
Shah said Kejriwal caused an embarrassment, and therefore, should tender an apology for his baseless allegations.
"I will write a letter to Kejriwalji so that he is reassured. It is a shame that we have to clarify it. Arvind Kejriwal has stooped to a new low. This is disgraceful. He now owes an apology not only to the Prime Minister, but to the entire nation," Shah said.
Coming down heavily on Kejriwal for making such statements in public and criticising Prime Minister Modi without checking facts, Jaitley said, "This is public discourse at its lowest. This comes from a political party whose leaders are being prosecuted for fake degrees."
Jaitley further said Kejriwal's irresponsible behaviour is "destabilising" the Centre-state relationship.
"The politics of adventurism is being treated as substitute for governance. I urge them (AAP) to avoid such non-issues and focus on real issues that need to be addressed in better governance," he added.
The Central Information Commission (CIC) had earlier directed the Delhi University and the Gujarat University to make the best possible search for information regarding the Prime Minister's degrees and provide it to 'appellant' Kejriwal.
The AAP chief had earlier claimed that the Delhi University records showed that Prime Minister Modi had never enrolled in the university, contradicting the latter's claim that he obtained his Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree from the university.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had on Saturday said, "One of the scams is his degrees. I'm not saying that you need to have high levels of education to become a Prime Minister. Someone does not need to be highly educated to be resourceful. We have no problem if he is 12th pass, but he should at least admit to it as the nation will respect him more. But if he keeps lying and cheating the nation, the people will not tolerate it."
The chief minister also questioned Congress president Sonia Gandhi and vice president Rahul Gandhi's silence on the issue, alleging that there was a deal or some sort of "setting" between them.