New Delhi, March 6 (IANS) The Delhi Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has questioned the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on its self-proclaimed badge of honesty, asking it to explain the reasons for the exit of its internal Lokpal Admiral L. Ramdas.
Delhi BJP Spokesperson Praveen Shankar Kapoor said on Thursday that leaders of the AAP make baseless allegations against the BJP but they should first look within.
Kapoor demanded an answer from AAP leaders Saurabh Bharadwaj and Anurag Dhanda on who betrayed AAP’s internal Lokpal Admiral L. Ramdas and why did he eventually leave the party?
He said that if the AAP truly claims to practice honest and transparent politics, it must also explain why its own Lokpal became disillusioned and chose to distance himself from the party.
Kapoor added that the history of the AAP shows that many respected and prominent individuals, who were associated with the party, in its early days either left over time or were sidelined.
These include: Anjali Damania, Kiran Bedi, Shazia Ilmi, Richa Pandey, Yogendra Yadav, Prashant Bhushan, Shanti Bhushan, Mayank Gandhi, Anand Kumar, Ashutosh, Ashish Khetan and Ashwini Upadhyay, among many others who once worked to strengthen the AAP.
He said that even in recent years several prominent AAP leaders have distanced themselves from the party. These include Raj Kumar Anand, Kapil Mishra, Kartar Singh Tanwar and Kailash Gahlot.
Kapoor added that the AAP must clarify why so many founding members, social activists, intellectuals, and senior leaders eventually parted ways with the party.
“Were all of them wrong, or did the AAP leadership fail to retain the trust of its own colleagues?” the Delhi BJP Spokesperson said.
He added that the BJP believes that differences of opinion are natural in politics, but the way one senior leader after another kept leaving the Aam Aadmi Party raised serious questions about the party’s internal leadership style.
Earlier, Delhi BJP President Virendra Sachdeva condemned the AAP’s demand to livestream proceedings of the Privileges Committee meeting of the Delhi Assembly which is dealing with the ‘Faansi Ghar’ matter.
Sachdeva’s remarks come on the eve of the likely appearance of AAP Convenor and former Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kerjwal before the Committee on Friday for presenting his explanation for declaring a shaft in the Assembly premises as a ‘Faansi Ghar’ and opening it for public viewing under the AAP government.
He said that the lies of the AAP and Kejriwal regarding the declaration of the Old Secretariat as “gallows” have been exposed to such an extent that they are now willing to tell thousands of lies to cover up their mistake.
–IANS
rch/khz
