Answer The Real Questions, AAP

The ‘patch-up’ between feuding camps of the Aam Aadmi Party amounts to obfuscation. Whose writ finally runs in the party is not a matter of public interest. The people would like to know how it addresses the allegations of corruption and communalism against it.

The rift in Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has dominated the media and social media space for last three weeks, starting with the “leakage” of Prashant Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav’s letter, dated 26 February 2015, to the AAP’s National Executive titled “Note on the way forward”. During these two weeks, AAP leaders have used various forums to articulate their point of view on the rift. However, the party’s national convener Arvind Kejriwal has chosen to conveniently remain silent on the whole issue than answer uncomfortable questions raised by the senior leaders Bhushan, Yadav, and the AAP founder, Shanti Bhushan.

After publishing two tweets expressing “hurt and pain” over the infighting, Kejriwal “refused to be drawn in the ugly battle”. He has maintained silence on the issue even after coming back to Delhi, as he did during 10 days of ‘detoxification’ at a naturopathy resort in Bangalore. Bhushan and Yogendra Yadavhave been eased out of Political Affairs Committee (PAC), though they continue to be on the National Executive as of now.

However, these matters are not really important to the citizens of Delhi who have decisively voted for AAP as the party of governance. They would like to see that AAP moves away from these internal turf battles and focuses on governance to deliver on the tall promises made in the manifesto. Kejriwal has indicated that his focus will be on fulfilling the Delhi mandate.

The AAP Rift has however revealed another cynical side of Kejriwal and the party- AAP- which has hardly received any attention. This is in part attributable to the emotional investment of opinion leaders- who set the narrative in the main stream media- in building AAP as an alternate to BJP.

Some of these issues which are of importance to us as Indians are as follows, and deserve analysis and potentially action by law enforcement agencies.

1. Did AAP accept dirty money for funding political ambitions?
2. Did AAP sell party tickets in return for money?
3. Has AAP stonewalled RTI to conceal unaccounted expenses in excess of EC guidelines?
4. Did AAP adapt tactics like distributing liquor to discredit primary opposition?
5. Is AAP using the tried and tested bogey of communalism for electoral gains?

While these doubts were being raised earlier as well, the recent rift has provided evidence in the form of letters of senior AAP leaders as well as ‘stings’ in the form of audio tapes.

1. Did AAP accept dirty money for funding political ambitions?

On Monday, 2nd February 2015, with barely a week before Delhi’s voters cast their vote in the Assembly elections, AVAM – AAP Volunteer Action Manch- “alleged that AAP received four donations of Rs 50 lakh each from “dubious companies”. They named four companies and said they were checking on 31 companies”. One of the core goals for which AAP was founded included clean-up of the dirty money involved in political funding. In response to the allegations, AAP leaders alleged that AVAM was a front for BJP, the allegations were politically motivated, there was no substance in the allegations. They maintained that the donations were duly scrutinized by the Political Affairs Committee (PAC) of the AAP as per laid down procedure, and there was no quid pro quo involved. The joint letter written by Bhushan and Yadav, both active members of the PAC, however, says as follows, exposing that the AAP’s claim of due diligence by the PAC was a white lie:

The four cheques of Rs 50 lakh each received by the party in April 2014 that led to a big media controversy just before Delhi elections. We now need to get to the root of these donations and find out if the PAC scrutiny mechanism failed and work out ways to avoid such an embarrassment in the future.

This opens up questions such as who were aware of the actual donor/s and whether there was a quid quo pro involved in the donation.

2. Did AAP sell party tickets in return for money?

AAP founder Shanti Bhushan, who funded AAP to a big extent through donations from his pocket, and backed the party all along since inception, alleged within one week of the Delhi elections that “AAP traded tickets for money”, and that “”15-20 MLAs are not fully clean”. AAP’s candidate selection procedure mandates that PAC will select candidates from the list of candidates nominated by active volunteers. Before Delhi elections Bhushan had alleged that:

“There were a lot of complaints about the kind of candidates selected, especially those who had been para-dropped into the party recently. Some of them were referred to the party Lokpal, who recommended the removal of two candidates”.

Unlike earlier when the party would ask each hopeful to get a hundred signatures and then open up the selection process, this time it was behind closed doors.

The allegations against the AAP candidates have been very serious and AAP leaders themselves have expressed concerns on this count, which was totally disregarded. The list of allegations against these candidates include, amongst others, abetment to suicide, criminal intimidation, rioting, land grab, assaulting a scheduled caste woman, using strong- arm tactics to oust tenants, running a builder mafia, using muscle power during elections, possession of deadly weapons, assault on public servants, kidnapping and theft of property.

3. Has AAP stonewalled RTI to conceal unaccounted expenses in excess of EC guidelines?

Transparency in politics has been one of the key stated goals for which AAP was founded. AAP has claimed moral high ground saying it is the only political party which accepts donations through website and also discloses all its donations online. However, as anyone with basic knowledge of how black money economy thrives knows, disclosing your revenues (donations or receipts) is only one part of ensuring clean funds. The other side to this involves full accounting and disclosure of the expenses.

The cases built by Income Tax department for tax evasion usually involve proving that the expenses or investments made by the concerned tax evader are in excess of the income. BSP chief Mayawati is being prosecuted for the disproportionate assets case (popularly known as Taj corridor case), and so is AIADMK ‘supremo’ J Jayalalithaa.

AAP has campaigned for political parties to be included under Right to Information and backed Chief Information Commissioner’s (CIC) move to bring six national parties (Congress, BJP, CPI, CPI (M), NCP and BSP) under RTI. Many independent activists have appealed to AAP that they should come under RTI to put moral pressure on other political parties.  However, till date, AAP has itself refused to come under RTI defending the move saying donations received are disclosed on the party’s website.

Bhushan slammed the party over the lack of transparency:

“We had claimed that the parties should come under RTI and we berated the BJP and the Congress for flouting the Information Commission directive to them to come under RTI. We said that we will put out all our accounts on a public website. But what is the reality today. Far from bringing the party under RTI, we have not even put our accounts on a website. We have put out our donations but not expenses”.

The fresh allegations by the AAP leaders suggest that there is more than meets the eye. AAP contested 432 seats in the Lok Sabha elections of May 2014. The expenses of extensive campaigning in the Lok Sabha elections on 2014 across these 432 seats, especially in the star constituencies of Varanasi, Amethi and Delhi constituencies have not been disclosed till date. Likewise expenses of the 8 month long campaign for Delhi elections of January 2015 have not been disclosed till date. While a certain amount of delay is inevitable in collecting the information, feeding the information in the accounting system, validating the data, reproducing the reports and publishing it for wider consumption is understandable, the delay is unexplainable for AAP, which has taken high moral ground on this subject, and attacked other parties alleging malpractices in funding.Suggestion by Bhushan that “We need to fulfill our promise of bringing the party within the purview of RTI” should be viewed in this context.

As per January 2015 report of the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR)

“AAP was an unrecognised party at the time of 2013 polls and is, thus, not required to give an account of its election expenditure. However, in a letter to the EC on February 22, 2014, AAP had requested for a grace period of 15 days, but the EC hasn’t received the statement yet”

i.e., as of January 2015! This is most laughable excuse that AAP could have come up with, and points to a possible non-accounting of donations received in cash as well as expenses made in cash during the 2013 Delhi elections itself.

4. Did AAP adapt tactics like distributing liquor to discredit primary opposition?

In January 2015, a week before the Delhi elections, Election Commission officials raided AAP leader and candidate for MLA, Naresh Balyan’s residence and seized more than 5,000 liquor bottles. AAP denied any involvement of its leader in the liquor controversy, while Delhi Police maintained that they have the necessary evidence against Balyan. In his defense, Balyan said that the bottles confiscated belonged to a BJP worker. “I have no link with this property. The BJP always orchestrates such games. The allegations are baseless. The liquor has been confiscated from a BJP worker who is from our village,” Balyan told ANI. The AAP leaders requested the Delhi Police that the investigations and inquiry should wait till the elections.

Balyan won from the Uttam Nagar constituency with 85,881 votes, and we can expect the inquiry to take number of years, going by the experience of similar cases.

It is important to note that the AAP’s assured the public and investigation agencies that Balyan was not involved in the liquor controversy, without any due internal inquiry. This is clearly evident from the letter from Bhushan and Yadav’s to AAP’s National Executive:

“Allegations of liquor recovery against our candidate Naresh Ballyan in Uttam Nagar. We must develop inner party mechanism that is at once quick, fair and also credible in terms of its distance from the political leadership. An inquiry into the Ballyan case could be the starting point”

This raises doubt whether the liquor was stored with another goal, viz., tarnishing the image of the opposition candidates by distributing liquor in their name. After all, Kejriwal had repeatedly asked the voters of Delhi to accept bribes and liquor from the opposition candidates and vote for AAP (check these reports in The Hindu, DNA and Economic Times).

5. Is AAP using the tried and tested bogey of communalism for electoral gains?

As it is often said, secularism is the last resort of the scoundrels in Indian politics. The AAP leaders including Kejriwal have time and now attacked the principal opposition in Delhi, BJP, of being communal. On the verge of the Delhi elections, Kejriwal accused BJP of instigating communal violence in Trilokpuri, Nand Nagri, Nangloi and Bawana areas of Delhi, and in specific, of attacking the churches. Kejriwal alleged that  various areas in the national capital witnessed communal tension after BJP came to power at the Centre as the party was “trying to grab power in the city by hook or by crook”. He pointedly made a reference to church “attacks” saying, “A church was set ablaze in Seemapuri and… two more churches have been attacked… We condemn this. This party (BJP) before the election said that it will do development”.

A deeper analysis of alleged “attacks” on churches in Delhi during the months leading into Delhi elections indicates that stray incidences were hyped up to build communal passions against BJP.

The obvious gainer of such cynical politics has always been the party best suited to beat BJP, as evident from analysis of “tactical voting” patterns in various state as well as Central elections. In order to position AAP as the “secular” party which leads the campaign against “communal” BJP, AAP leader Raghav Chadha joined the protests against church “attacks” and provided sound bites to the media.

The allegations of church “attacks” against Sangh Parivar and BJP are of significance in the light of criminal activities of AAP in similar instances, as alleged by Bhushan himself. As per Bhushan’s letter to AAP’s National Executive:

“The same unethical practice was resorted to in the matter of Communal poster, published and put up by the party. Again when we were caught, we put up someone to be a fall guy and he was rewarded by being made the constituency incharge and then given ticket by the party. Such unethical and indeed criminal practices must immediately cease and mechanisms be instituted to ensure that they do not recur”.

These communal posters were put up by AAP in July 2014 when “there were rumours of some Muslim MLAs from the Congress joining the BJP”, to discredit those Muslim MLAs in the eyes of the Muslim community, thus pre-empting the formation of government by BJP.

As per an audio tape published by a former AAP MLA Rajesh Garg, after inciting communal passions against the three Muslim MLAs, Kejriwal wanted to form the government by breaking them away from Congress party.

This is probably the most damning allegation against Kejriwal and AAP brand of politics. Apart from the political angle, this constitutes the evidence on which ideally most of the senior leaders of AAP should be prosecuted and jailed under various provisions of the IPC. 

The “unethical practices” mentioned by Bhushan in his letter relate to the July 2014 incident in Delhi wherein Delhi Police arrested AAP’s Delhi unit secretary Dilip Pandey, and four party volunteers Ravi Shankar Singh, Sonu, Javed and Rajkumar. They had allegedly put up posters calling call for large-scale protests outside the residences of Mateen Ahmed, Asif Mohammad Khan and Hasan Ahmed, the three MLAs of Congress party, on July 16 2014. These MLAs were dubbed as “traitors of the (Muslim) community” who were willing to support BJP for forming the government in Delhi. AAP leader and party’s Political Affairs Committee member Sanjay Singh arranged a news conferenceto allege that “The BJP is trying to replicate Gujarat style of functioning in Delhi. Police in Gujarat also used similar tactics to suppress its opponents and frame the innocents.”

Bhushan’s letter now reconfirms that AAP was indeed behind putting up these posters in Delhi. Kejriwal found a “fall guy” Amanatullah Khan to take the blame, to save AAP from embarrassment and possible criminal prosecution. Kejriwal tweeted from his account that police should arrest Amanatullah Khan since he has confessed to the crime, thus trying to bring closure to the criminal investigation which had the potential to reach top leaders of AAP. After accusing Amanatullah Khan of putting up communal posters and challenging the Delhi Police to arrest him, subsequently AAP gave ticket to Khan for Delhi election, who won the election from Okhla constituency with 104,271 votes!

If there is to be a case study in inciting communal passions for gaining political leverage, Kejriwal and AAP have indeed made their best efforts to ensure they feature in there.

What is not yet clear is why Bhushan and Yadav kept quiet on the AAP’s state of affairs till after the election results. Was there a “deal” getting worked out that fell through? That would of course be mere speculation at this juncture. However the available facts confirm that AAP is indeed old ‘secular’ wine in the new bottle, packaged better with the help of main stream media, which is desperately seeking alternatives to stop BJP. Lastly, what is also clear from the main stream media’s kid glove treatment to Kejriwal and AAP is that they will not confront Kejriwal on these serious allegations!