Delhi deputy chief minister and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Manish Sisodia alleged on Wednesday that their party councillors have started getting ‘calls’ from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as he rekindled poaching allegations against the saffron unit following the civic poll result. Taking to Twitter, Sisodia said, “BJP’s game has started. Phone calls started coming to our newly elected corporators.”
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The minister, who had become the centre of controversy in the ongoing Delhi liquor policy scam, further stated that none of the AAP councillors “will be sold”. “We have told all the corporators that if they get a phone call or come to meet them, record them,” Sisodia’s post on the micro-blogging site read.
The development comes after the AAP headed by Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal registered a massive victory in the MCD election and toppled the saffron side’s 15-year reign in the corporations. This was the first poll held following the merging of three erstwhile MCDs into one.
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When the counting began this morning, both the parties were locked in a neck-to-neck tussle. In the evening, the final results were released by the Delhi State Election Commission which showed the AAP bagged 134 of the 250 wards while the BJP settled at 104. The Congress party came out as a distant third, winning only nine wards.
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The poaching allegations had first surfaced in August when AAP MP Sanjay Singh alleged that the saffron party offered ₹20 crore to 20-30 of their MLAs to quit Kejriwal’s side. He also claimed that the corporators were threatened that if they did not do what they were asked for, they will face the ‘same fate’ as that of Sisodia, who was then being probed and still has the spotlight on him for his role in the liquor scam.
“The same model which worked on Shinde (Eknath Shinde) in Maharashtra failed on Sisodia, but now the BJP is targeting our MLAs,” Singh had alleged.
The MP’s allegations came only days after Sisodia had claimed that the BJP offered him the chief minister’s post and also closure of all cases against him if he turned his back to his party and joined the saffron camp’s side.
The BJP had, however, repeatedly quashed the allegations saying the AAP is throwing them in order to divert attention from the liquor scam probe.
