Aam Aadmi Party renegade Indranil Rajguru on Saturday alleged that Arvind Kejriwal was working to help the BJP in Gujarat, and accused the AAP of bringing planeloads of money into the Gujarat Assembly elections.
Rajguru, who resigned from the AAP on Friday to return to his old party, the Congress, said the AAP was according preference to candidates suggested by the BJP over those likelier to win because its overriding intent was to prevent the Congress from coming to power.
The Congress said the allegations from an “insider” had confirmed its belief that the AAP was the BJP’s “B-team”.
“They are saying I quit the party because I wanted to be the CM face,” Rajguru said at a news conference at the Congress headquarters, attended also by party spokesperson Pawan Khera and Gujarat minder Raghu Sharma.
“I wanted tickets for 15 candidates who were strong and could have defeated the BJP. But they said, ‘Don’t insist, suggestions from Kamalam (Gujarat BJP headquarters) will have to be accommodated’. It is true that they sell tickets for money. They pressured me for money as well.”
Rajguru, a wealthy businessman fielded by the Congress in the 2017 Gujarat elections against then chief minister Vijay Rupani, had joined the AAP with the expectation of being projected as the party’s face in the state. However, the AAP chose Isudan Gadhvi as its candidate for chief minister.
“Candidates are selected in a way (that would) help the BJP. I went to the AAP to defeat the BJP, not the Congress. They asked me not to be rigid,” Rajguru said.
“Lots of money is also coming. On October 1, they brought bags full of currency notes. When I asked how the money had been brought, they signalled, ‘By airplane’. They fool the people. The Congress doesn’t do that kind of deceptive politics.”
Khera said: “This is a serious exposé by an insider, by an AAP member who saw it all. Two chief ministers use the Punjab government’s plane to carry cash for the Gujarat elections. Where is the Enforcement Directorate, CBI and income-tax (department)?
“Had it been any other party, the ED would have started raids by now. If the
ED-CBI don’t get into it over the next few days, we all will know the answer. We always knew of the collaboration between the AAP and the BJP but we have an insider’s account.”
Sharma said: “What was airport security doing when such huge amounts of cash were being transferred? Can anybody ferry bags full of cash in chartered planes? What were the security agencies in Delhi and Gujarat doing? The civil aviation ministry is under the central government, what were they doing?”
Khera said the BJP was clearly facilitating the movement of the money, which belonged to either Punjab or Delhi.
“Money from Delhi was used in Punjab and now Punjab resources are being used in Gujarat,” Khera said.
The Congress had pounced on Kejriwal when Prashant Bhushan, one of the founder members of the AAP, revealed that the anti-corruption movement they had launched together was propped up by the RSS.
The Congress also portrayed the AAP’s political forays in Goa and Uttarakhand as attempts to help the BJP. The combined vote share of the Trinamul Congress and the AAP in Goa was 11 per cent while the difference between the vote shares of the Congress and the BJP was 6 per cent.
Congress communications chief Jairam Ramesh said in Telangana on Saturday that the Congress alone could fight the BJP.
“All the regional parties do match-fixing with the BJP. Whether under pressure of the ED-CBI or (because of) political convenience, they all do match-fixing. The TRS (Telangana Rashtra Samithi) is a B-team of the BJP. The AIMIM is a B-team of the BJP.”
Asaduddin Owaisi’s AIMIM has entered the Gujarat poll fray as well, a move that will doubtless harm the Congress.
Kejriwal on Saturday accused the Congress of having a tacit understanding with the BJP in Gujarat and accused both of looking to stop the AAP’s growth.
