Dramatic scenes unfolded here on Thursday as Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal led his party’s MLAs to Rajghat and held an informal floor test at his residence by convening a meeting of AAP MLAs, a day after the party accused the BJP of trying to topple the State government.
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All AAP MLAs except eight, who were unavailable physically but joined via their phones, including Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia who is in Himachal Pradesh, were present at the CM’s residence, party sources said.
Mr. Kejriwal said ₹800 crore being offered to AAP MLAs in a bid to topple the government was the “real scam”, even as he termed allegations related to the excise policy against the AAP Delhi government “rubbish”.
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The BJP described the visit of the Delhi CM, along with his MLAs, to Rajghat as a “flop show” and questioned the silence of the AAP national convener on the alleged multi-crore excise policy scam.
‘Govt. stable’
Talking to the media after paying tribute to Mahatma Gandhi, Mr. Kejriwal said, “They’ve kept ₹800 crore aside to topple the Delhi government and are trying to buy 40 MLAs for ₹20 crore each. But I am extremely happy to say that not even a single MLA of ours has chosen to bow down to them.”
“AAP MLAs are not for sale. Our government is stable. Delhi’s development will go on regardless. We visited Rajghat and offered our tributes to Mahatma Gandhi. We also meditated there for a while and prayed for the betterment of the country,” he added.
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Without naming the BJP, Mr. Kejriwal said “they” had toppled governments in Maharashtra, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Goa and were now after the AAP government in Delhi.
The Delhi CM said that a “fraudulent FIR” had been registered against Mr. Sisodia. He added that officials of the Central Bureau of Investigation, after a 14-hour-long raid, had left the residence of the Deputy CM empty-handed.
“Now they’re trying to lure our MLAs, offering them ₹20 crore in cash to side with them and topple the AAP government. There’s no scam [in the excise policy]. The real scam is ‘Operation Lotus’,” he added.
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‘Operation Lotus failed’
AAP chief spokesperson Saurabh Bhardwaj said the Delhi CM had foiled BJP’s plan to topple the State government.
“Since morning, the BJP has been trying to plant a narrative that some AAP MLAs are unreachable. This is completely baseless. They are spreading rumours to topple a democratically elected government. Operation Lotus has failed,” Mr. Bhardwaj said.
“All MLAs have expressed unequivocal support, saying they’ll stand by their CM till their last breath; 12 MLAs informed the party that they were contacted by the BJP which wanted them to break AAP,” he added.
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‘Nothing to gain’
Responding to the allegations, west Delhi BJP MP Parvesh Verma asked why a party in opposition with eight members in the Assembly would seek to “buy MLAs”.
“The people may have believed these allegations in 2013 when we had 32 Assembly seats and the AAP had 28. But today, when we have just eight MLAs and they have 62, what could we stand to gain?” he said.
North East Delhi BJP MP Manoj Tiwari said the Delhi CM had still not spoken about the excise policy. “Through your silence, people have understood how much money you’ve siphoned off,” Mr. Tiwari said.
Meanwhile, the BJP also held protests across the Capital demanding that Mr. Sisodia be sacked from the Cabinet.
“What was Mr. Kejriwal’s compulsion to give licences to blacklisted companies? Instead of answering these questions, they are talking nonsense,” Delhi BJP president Adesh Gupta said.
Leader of the Opposition Ramvir Singh Bidhuri said AAP government must answer why liquor vends were opened in violation of the master plan. He said those who campaigned against corruption were now “themselves trapped in it”.
Mr. Bidhuri also said rules were not being followed in calling for a one-day special Assembly session on Friday.
“Only a one-day session has been called to discuss the excise policy, for which no rules were followed. Whenever AAP needs to talk on any subject of its own choice, it calls a day-long session of the Assembly,” the LoP said.