Headlines
Anjali Damania quits AAP over horse-trading reports
Mumbai, March 11
For the second time in 10
months, senior AAP leader in Maharashtra and anti-corruption activist
Anjali Damania quit the party on Wednesday on a note of disgust amidst a
fresh crisis which has gripped the Aam Aadmi Party.
Her
resignation, the second after a similar move in June last year, was
ostensibly prompted by reports of a sting operation that alleged Delhi
Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal tried to poach Congress legislators to
form the government last year.
"I quit... I have not come into AAP for this nonsense," she said in a surprise tweet on Wednesday afternoon.
In
a reference to Kejriwal, whom she considered her mentor and idol,
Damania said: "I believed him. I backed Arvind for principles not
horse-trading."
In a series of tweets, she said: "Aap is not a
political party. It was a ray of hope for this country. Thousands of
vols (volunteers) slogged for it. Just no one can play with the siddhant
(principles)."
Referring to Kejriwal and party leader Prashant
Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav, she wrote: "Aap will only work on Siddhant.
Just enough of nonsense. Arvind, PB & YY should beg apology to the
karyakarta in next 48 hrs for their acts."
"I demand inquiry in
48 hrs into all these allegations. Vols have given their sweat &
blood. It is not for the party... It is for the country."
Last
year, she and some other office-bearers from Maharashtra had quit
following the AAP's no-show in the Lok Sabha elections in the state.
The
revelation of 'horse-trading' was made by former AAP legislator from
Rohini Rajesh Garg who alleged that Kejriwal had discussed the issue of
wooing Congress legislators in the national capital to prop up the first
AAP government early last year.
Garg also released the audio
clip of the sting operation of a purported telephonic conversation he
had with Kejriwal as evidence to back his allegations.
Damania's
resignation came barely a week after a party colleague Mayank Gandhi
went public about the deliberations of the AAP national executive
meeting and then claimed that he was being targeted by certain leaders
in the capital
AAP leader releases audio of Kejriwal
A former AAP legislator on Wednesday released an audio tape in which party chief Arvind Kejriwal was purportedly heard engineering defection in the Congress to form a government in 2014 in Delhi during president's rule. The AAP dismissed the audio, saying it was an attempt to defame the party.In the tape, whose authenticity could not ascertained, Kejriwal is allegedly heard telling former legislator Rajesh Garg to split the Congress as it was not ready to again support the AAP to form the government in Delhi.
Garg told reporters that the conversation between him and Kejriwal took place sometime in July-August, 2014. Kejriwal had resigned on February 14, 2014 after 49 days in power over the failure to pass an anti-graft bill in the Delhi assembly.
The AAP chief was also reportedly heard telling Garg that Manish Sisodia, now Delhi's deputy chief minister, was in touch with the Congress on the issue of forming the government.
AAP leader Preeti Sharma Menon told reporters that such tapes are not new and were also released earlier to defame the party.