AAP row: Congress MLA's corroborate Kejriwal tape on horse trading charges

The party that openly advocated sting operations to catch corruption in the act, has been thoroughly stung by one of its own. An audio recording from 2014, of a phone conversation between former Aam Aadmi Party MLA Rajesh Garg and party chief Arvind Kejriwal, came into the open on Wednesday. In the recorded conversation that took place before the dissolution of the Delhi Assembly, Kejriwal is asking Garg to get six Congress MLAs to support the AAP in forming a government in Delhi.

Evidence of AAP seeking Congress support mounted as AAP leaders Prashant Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav also released their statement that not only refutes the party's statement (on Tuesday) against them, but also shows how Kejriwal wanted to reach out to the Congress, against the wishes of many volunteers and leaders. Bhushan had levied this charge in his letter to the National Executive on February 26.

The recording was made by Garg, the former MLA from Rohini, who says the conversation happened in July 2014. Garg says, "Arvind Kejriwal called me to get the support of Congress MLAs. However, no names were taken." According to Garg, he records all his calls as a matter of routine.

Garg says that though he distanced himself from the party after that conversation, he sent the recording to party leader Kumar Vishwas during the 2015 Delhi elections as he was troubled by corrupt candidates being parachuted into constituencies and volunteers being ill-treated. He says that he told Vishwas that much was wrong within the party. When Vishwas asked for proof, Garg says he mailed the recording to him, and to no one else. Garg claims not to know how the recording reached the press.

The recording has Kejriwal saying "We are ready, but these people are not agreeing at all. But they are in touch with Manish (Sisodia)."

Garg replies that eight MLAs are ready but Ajay Maken and Randeep Surjewala (Congress spokesperson) are not. Garg suggests that they use the mohalla sabhas to say that people want them to form the government with someone's support.

But Kejriwal asks him not to make this public unless the Congress says yes, else AAP will look "desperate".

Both are worried about their efforts being too late, in case the assembly gets dissolved soon. But Kejriwal says that if they publicly say that Congress is supporting them, and the support doesn't come through, then they will be reduced to nothing.

Former Congress MLA Mateen Ahmed Khan says that he was approached by Garg sometime in July last year. Another former Congress MLA Hari Shankar Gupta does not confirm if he was asked but says that AAP was desperately looking for Congress support. Asif Mohammad Khan, former Congress MLA says that late in 2014 he had many meetings with Manish Sisodia and Sanjay Singh who asked him to get their word to the Congress high command. However, Khan says that Rahul and Sonia were dead set against any tie up with AAP.

The immediate fallout of the news was the resignation of Anjali Damania, who until Wednesday morning was a senior party leader, Maharashtra convenor, strong supporter and close confidant of Kejriwal. She tweeted that she quit because she had supported the party for principles and not "horse-trading". Only recently, she had spoken out against Bhushan, accusing him of wanting the party to lose the Delhi elections.
The party kicked into immediate damage-control mode, with senior leader Ashish Khetan downplaying any charges of horse-trading, calling it "political realignment" instead. However, clever wordplay is unlikely to get the party out of this fresh mess.

Bhushan and Yadav's letter, too, is a scathing indictment of internal party practices. They call out Kejriwal on repressing and vetoing volunteers' wishes, of not listening to valid criticism, and of going against official party decisions. They give certain examples; Yadav being shut down by the party for criticising communal posters being put up in Okhla by an AAP worker, how AVAM's Karan Singh's case was handled in an undemocratic manner, of how the biodatas of the corrupt candidates in AAP were never shared with the PAC, despite Bhushan's multiple requests.

The letter says that Yadav never stated any wish to replace Kejriwal as National Convenor, and that they distance themselves from Shanti Bhushan's statements to the media. The letter ends with their promise to stay in the party and work to get it back on track.