Rahul says AAP was propped up by BJP to bring down UPA, subvert democracy

Congress MP Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday tweeted that the India Against Corruption (IAC) movement, led by Anna Hazare, and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) were "propped up by the RSS/BJP to subvert democracy and bring down the UPA government". He quoted an article in which AAP founding member Prashant Bhushan, who was expelled for "anti-party" activities in 2015, said he regretted not having understood Arvind's (Kejriwal) character earlier enough.

The anti-corruption movement, led by a group of prominent social activists, played a key role in shaping the public opinion against graft ahead of the 2014 general elections, which the BJP won with an overwhelming majority. A lot of IAC founding members, including Arvind Kejriwal, went on to form the AAP.

The Indian Express quoted Bhushan's interview with a television channel: “In hindsight there are two things that I do regret. One is not seeing that the movement was to a large extent supported and propped up by the BJP-RSS for their own political purposes to bring down the Congress government and get themselves in power. Arvind was aware of it, I have very little doubt of that. The second regret that I have is not having understood Arvind’s character earlier enough. I understood it too late by which time we had actually created another Frankenstein’s monster so to say."

The IAC had faced such allegations earlier too. They have constantly rejected the Congress party's charge that it was a "political weapon" used against the previous UPA government, saying the IAC has "always been a non-political" movement. "The IAC categorically refutes false statement that it was a political weapon used against the then UPA. It is reiterated that IAC has always been a non-political movement since 2007," its convener Sarbajit Roy had said.

-Inputs from PTI