Kapil Mishra

Statements on Narendra Modi

Before joining BJP, Mishra had made many controversial statements against PM Narendra Modi, which often went on being extremely personal and hurtful. These included his allegations as regards a Gujarat girl as well as his calling Modi an ISI agent. Subsequently after becoming a BJP leader, Mishra has turned into an ardent Modi admirer.^{[26][27][28][29][30][31]}

2020 Delhi Assembly election

In January 2020, he stirred up a controversy when he likened the upcoming 2020 Delhi Legislative Assembly election to an India versus Pakistan contest. He tweeted, "There will be a contest on Delhi Roads between India and Pakistan on February 8". A show-cause notice was issued to Mishra by the Delhi poll authorities for "violation of the model code of conduct and the Representation of the People Act". Election Commission of India also imposed a 48-hour campaigning ban on him over his controversial tweets which tried to aggravate differences between two communities.^{[32][33][34][35]}

North East Delhi Riots

On 23 February 2020, Mishra was alleged to have publicly spoken out in a rally against the anti-CAA protesters, in the presence of the DCP of North East Delhi district, Ved Prakash Surya.^[a] Mishra is said to have tried to intimidate the police to remove the protesters from Jaffrabad and Chand Bagh areas in three days' time, allegedly threatening to take matters into his own hands, "hit the streets" and "not remain peaceful" in the event of their failure.^[37][38] After the rally, Mishra himself posted a video of him threatening the police on Twitter. Within a few hours of Kapil Mishra's rally, violent clashes started between the supporters and the people against CAA.^[39]

Relatives of the people who died in the violence accused Mishra of inciting the clashes and asked for his immediate arrest and strict punishment. The father of a victim Rahul Solanki claimed that Mishra instigated the fire and returned to his home, while their children are becoming victims of the violence. He added that people will continue losing their children until Mishra was arrested.^[40]

BJP's East Delhi MP, Gautam Gambhir, on 25 February stated that "Kapil Mishra's speech is not acceptable" and asked for strict action to be taken against the people responsible for violence, regardless of which political party they belonged to.^[39]

Five separate pleas seeking that a First Information Report (FIR) be registered against Mishra were filed. All the pleas deal with speeches made by Mishra over February 23 and 24, 2020, in North East Delhi’s Maujpur area.

Activist Harsh Mander had filed the first plea on February 26, 2020, in the Delhi High Court seeking action against Mishra, Anurag Thakur, Parvesh Verma and Abhay Verma. A Bench headed by Justice S. Muralidhar played videos of Mishra’s speeches in court, noting that they ex facie appeared to constitute the crime of hate speech. The Bench urged police to seriously consider the consequences of delaying FIRs. That same night, Justice Muralidhar got transferred to the Punjab and Haryana High Court. Mander subsequently withdrew his plea, to approach a lower court in 2021. His plea before the Patiala House Court remains pending.

Mohammad Ilyas, a resident of a riot-affected area, presented a complaint before Karkardooma court accusing Mishra and his associates of vandalising carts belonging to Muslims and Dalits in Kardampuri, even as police officials watched. The plea was heard by the for over three years before being returned the application to him, in February 2024, holding that since Mishra was a former MLA, only a special court constituted for trial of cases against MPs/MLA court could hear the complaint. Ilyas then filed his complaint before a Special MP/MLA court in Rouse Avenue, which ordered “further investigation” into Ilyas’s allegations against Mishra, rejecting the police theory that Mishra had no role. On November 10, 2025, however, Special Court set aside the ACJM’s order, ruling that it suffered from “a serious jurisdictional error” and “jurisdictional overreach”. After this, on 13 March 2026, the ACJM dismissed Ilyas’s demand for an FIR.

The third petition against Mishra was filed by the university’s students in 2020, seeking an FIR for hate speech. This plea remains pending in the High Court, despite a December 2021 Supreme Court order requesting it to dispose of the matter “preferably within a period of three months”.

North East Delhi resident Jami Rizvi's plea is pending in a Shahdara court since March 2020,where he alleged that Mishra incited communal violence by delivering inflammatory speeches and brandishing a firearm while directing a mob to assault anti-CAA protesters.

The fifth complaint was filed by Muhamad Waseem, also a North-East Delhi resident, in November 2020, which is stuck in a jurisdictional loop between a regular magistrate in Shahdara and a Special MP/MLA Court.

In addition, an FIR was registered by police under Section 125 of the Representation of the People Act, on a complaint by a Returning Officer regarding Mishra’s tweets during the 2020 Delhi Assembly elections. In June 2024, a magistrate took cognizance of the chargesheet in this case and summoned Mishra. The BJP leader challenged this, but on March 7, 2025, Special Judge dismissed his revision petition. Mishra then approached the Delhi High Court, arguing that the digital evidence provided by X (formerly Twitter) regarding his account was in a “coded language” and incomprehensible. On August 28, 2025, the High Court stayed the framing of charges, requesting the trial court to defer hearings until the prosecution could provide interpreted documents to the petitioner.^{[41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50]}