In a murky twist to the raging infighting in the Aam Aadmi Party, former party MLA Rajesh Garg on Wednesday accused Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal of trying to poach six Congress MLAs to form government last year.
He also claimed that Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia was in touch with the Congress MLAs to lure them to float a new party and support AAP from outside.
“We are ready to form the government, but Congress is not ready to support us. Manish (Sisodia) is in touch with the Congress. Do one thing, split the Congress and ask their six MLAs to float a new party and support us,” Kejriwal was purportedly heard saying in a telephonic conversation with Garg.
Garg also alleged that Kejriwal wanted to avoid facing the elections.
“Congress won’t support us. We have been trying for the last one and a half month. These six Congress MLAs would have supported BJP, but three of them are Muslims. They won’t support the BJP. Those six MLAs should support us,” Kejriwal purportedly told Garg in the audio clip.
After the controversy broke over the clip, Garg feigned ignorance on how the clip became public saying he had e-mailed it to party leader Kumar Vishwas.
“I had recorded the conversation. I have been in the anti-corruption movement and I keep on recording conversations. I was strictly against poaching MLAs and I stopped going to the party office after the episode,” he said.
“I was in favour of taking Congress’ support once again, but not in support of horse-trading. I was hurt when these people said break the six (Congress) MLAs. Then I thought how will these people change politics,” Garg said, claiming that Sisodia and another senior party leader Sanjay Singh had called him several times to have a conversation with Congress.
Incidentally, AAP leader Prashant Bhushan had also mentioned about a similar point.
In a letter to the National Executive on February 26, Bhushan said that when the NE had taken a decision not to seek Congress support, attempts were being made to seek their support as late as November. This was the same time when Kejriwal was facing pressure within the organisation and MLAs not to go for polls and form the government.
“The lack of recording decisions of the NE/PAC has led to situations where decision taken by the NE (about not seeking Congress support for forming the government in Delhi after we resigned last year) were repeatedly flouted.
“Not only a letter was sent to the LG asking him to postpone the dissolution of assembly in June but as late as November, attempts were being surreptitiously made to seek Congress support to form the government again in Delhi without having to contest elections,” Bhushan had said in the letter.
“We are ready (to take Congress’s support) but they are not ready to listen. Manish (Sisodia) and others are in touch,” Kejriwal purportedly says in the clip.
Garg is also purportedly heard as telling Kejriwal that all eight MLAs were ready to support the AAP, but Congress’s chief ministerial candidate Ajay Maken and Randeep Surjewala were not ready to do so, saying this will hurt their party’s prospects in Haryana.
“These people are not able to take a final decision because they (Maken and Surjewala) are meddling in it. They have been saying this several times,” Kejriwal purportedly said.
Garg is also heard suggesting that in the party should appeal in mohalla sabhas, that it was ready to take support of (the Congress) if it wanted to extend it.
“Don’t say that...I am trying to say that let’s say that we are not taking anyone’s support. If they (the Congress) are ready, then we are ready. If we say (that we are ready to take Congress support) then we will sound desperate,” Kejriwal said.
Reacting to Garg’s claim that he had emailed the conversation to him, Vishwas said, “In the fight for truth, there have been several testing instances since last four years, but (we) sailed through it. The truth will prevail in the end.”
Another party leader and PAC member Gopal Rai said the facts will be put before the right party forum and a decision will be taken on this.
“All the facts will be put before the Political Affairs Committee, which will decide on the issue,” he said.
Reacting to the conversation in the audio clip, Delhi Congress chief Ajay Maken said no one had believed him, when he said AAP had approached Congress MLAs for government formation in Delhi, during the assembly polls.
“I said that AAP in certain aspects is even worse than any other political party. It’s a group of people who are craving for power, who are power hungry people. They can go to any extent to get power,” he said.
Maken said that the Congress stood vindicated with the emergence of the audio clip having the purported talk between Kejriwal and Garg.
He further said that “at that time we did not want to stoop down to the level of naming people who approached us, but we gave enough indications”.
Lauding Congress MLAs for refusing to leave the party despite “pressures” and “allurements”, Maken said that AAP and their leaders have a lot to answer with regard to the “kind of audio clip” which has come out in the open.
