Gautam Gambhir, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s newly elected East Delhi MP, accused Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal of running a smear campaign against him during the Lok Sabha elections, the Hindustan Times reported. He said elections can be won or lost, but the day one compromises with their conscience, they lose everything.

Earlier this month, the Aam Aadmi Party had accused the cricketer-turned-politician of distributing “obscene and derogatory pamphlets” about its candidate Atishi Marlena. Gambhir had then issued a defamation notice to Marlena and Kejriwal.

Speaking at a press conference after his victory against Marlena, Gambhir said: “They had levelled such malicious allegations against me just to win the election on one seat. I want to say this to Arvind Kejriwal, you can win or lose an election and move ahead, but how can you look at yourself in the mirror the day you lose your conscience?”

Meanwhile, Aam Aadmi Party spokesperson Saurabh Bharadwaj said: “We offer our best wishes to all seven BJP MPs and expect them to work on Delhi Police, Delhi Development Authority and Municipal Corporation of Delhi. All of these departments are directly under the Centre and a lot needs to be done in them. Gautam Gambhir was cheating public using his duplicate to campaign in hot afternoon while he was sitting inside an AC car. Public will forgive him if he himself meets people on dusty and sunny roads of Delhi.”

The Aam Aadmi Party had on May 9 alleged that Gambhir had used a doppelganger to campaign for him in order to avoid the heat.

In the recently-concluded Lok Sabha elections, the BJP won all seven seats with more than 50% vote share. In East Delhi, Gambhir defeated the Congress’ Arvinder Singh Lovely, while Marlena stood a distant third.