Three days after his sacked cabinet colleague Kapil Mishra slapped serious charges of corruption against Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, the Aam Aadmi Party national convenor's response has been just four words—“Everything is a lie.”
It is as if the man who came to power on the plank of banishing corruption is coated with teflon. But a defeat of sorts in the war of perception has stuck on him.
And going by Mishra, who began his fourth day of his war against corruption with a 'satyagraha' in his own house demanding that Kejriwal make public details of the foreign tours of five of his party mates, the charges against Kejriwal have only just begun.
“I may have to register a 100 FIRs against Kejriwal given the number of complaints I am getting from all kinds of people. I am receiving complaints against them (Kejriwal and Satyendra Jain) from peons, chaprasis and drivers, from IAS officers to their stenographers,” Mishra claimed.
According to him, the complaints and corruption stories involving Kejriwal and his close aides in the party are coming to him by email, in response to the 'Let's Clean AAP' campaign he launched. Mishra plans to hand over all those complaints to the CBI.
Whether or not the chief minister reveals the foreign travel details of his colleagues, Mishra intends to go to the Delhi Anti-Corruption Bureau on Thursday (tomorrow) to tell them who was putting pressure on him and what kind of pressure to ensure the agency made no progress in investigating the Rs 400 crore tanker scam during the Sheila Dixit regime. It pertains to the purchase of 385 stainless steel water tankers.
“Kejriwal and his friends are constantly in touch with Sheila Dikshit and her son Sandeep. In one month of taking charge of the water ministry in Delhi, I dug out the Rs 400 crore scam. Why didn't the other ministers make such exposes? Were there no scams in their departments in the 15 years of Sheila Dikshit government? Kejriwal and his men stopped me from pursuing the tanker scam and I feel he would have done the same with others,” Mishra elaborated.
While the attack on Kejriwal is helping Mishra to grab eyeballs, he is sharper in his attack on Jain, who he alleges, indulged in corruption, favouring companies in which his relatives have stakes. He also charged Jain with indulging in nepotism, favouring his daughter.
Mishra is firm on not revealing details of when he saw Jain hand over Rs 2 crore in cash to Kejriwal. “It is evidence, and I cannot give it to the thief. I will give it to the agency,” he told a television channel as he fears that being the chief minister with money and clout, Kejriwal may tamper with this evidence.
Mishra does not think he is weakening the party. “I wont leave the party. I will throw the corrupt out. The day Jain goes to jail, the MLAs and leaders of AAP will realise I have been speaking the truth”, is his last word for now.
Meanwhile, AAP spokesperson Ashutosh in a blogpost said, "It is absurd. It is ridiculous. He is suggesting that Arvind Kejriwal accepted a bribe from one of his cabinet colleagues. He was making accusation that even Arvind's worst enemies would not make". Ashutosh is convinced that "in this game of treachery, Kapil is not alone. I am convinced that he is being backed by the most powerful forces who have been trying to tarnish the image of Arvind and AAP since we formed the government. The BJP government at the Centre has not left a single opportunity to strangle the AAP government".
The last big crisis Kejriwal and his party faced were around the time when leaders like Prashant Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav left, charging Kejriwal with being too autocratic. But never had he preened about being a democrat or a liberal. This time, however, the issue is corruption. And he spoke from a high moral ground.
