The Aam Aadmi Party has declared that it has “evidence” proving that the compact disc of the sting operation which showed eight of its candidates accepting funds allegedly through illegal means to be “doctored” and “heavily edited”.
At a press conference here on Sunday, the party declared that after watching and analysing the unedited tapes of the sting it has come to the conclusion that critical portions of the CD were “edited and deleted”. The AAP is in the process of uploading the entire raw footage, which it accessed from the Election Commission and has also uploaded critical parts of the tapes which were “tampered with”.
The AAP aired the raw tape showing how the original footage “completely exonerated” their candidates and did not prove their guilt as claimed by Mediasarkar, the portal which conducted the sting.
“Needless to say, there is political motivation behind the sting operation. All our members are honest and innocent,” party leader Yogendra Yadav said.
Urging the media to exercise “greater self-regulation”, Dr. Yadav said examination of the tapes showed that “doctoring of the worst order” was done to the sting CD supplied to the media, which some news channels aired without ascertaining its veracity.
The raw footage showed Shazia Ilmi, the AAP candidate from R.K. Puram, rebuffing the reporters who were conducting the sting. The sting had shown Ms. Ilmi accepting donations allegedly without proper verification.
“Ms. Ilmi says she will help only if there is something concrete and will not lie about it. But this portion was edited out, shifting the conversation to donation. The cut in the CD is misleading. Similarly, while she was discussing the donation — a few thousands rupees, the transcript claims that lakhs would be given,” Dr. Yadav added while highlighting the “difference” between the transcripts shown on screen and the actual conversation that took place.
The sting showed AAP leader Kumar Vishwas allegedly indulging in taking black money, but the raw footage aired at the press conference demonstrated that he actually had said that whether he accepts money by cash or cheque he will have to pay taxes.
AAP leader Manish Sisodia asked why portal CEO Anuranjan Jha has not yet explained why critical portions were edited from the version shared on TV.
On the other hand, AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal alleged in one of his tweets that Rs.1,400 crore have been distributed to a few media houses to air the fake and doctored CD.
Talking about the political conspiracy of the BJP and the Congress ahead of Delhi elections to malign image of the AAP, the party also reiterated its stand of taking legal action, including civil and criminal defamation cases, against the portal and the news channels that aired the video without questioning its veracity.
