With the political slugfest in Delhi likely to intensify, 54 out of 62 Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLAs met Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal at his residence on Thursday, 25 August, to discuss the alleged poaching attempts by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
This comes a day after AAP leaders alleged that MLAs were being offered Rs 20 crore to switch to the BJP.
AAP spokesperson Saurabh Bharadwaj said that 54 legislators attended the meet while seven are out of station and Health Minister Satyendar Jain is in jail. He also said that some of the party's MLAs were "probably stuck in traffic."
"We were not able to contact some of our MLAs as they were probably stuck in traffic, but we want to assure the people of Delhi that the AAP government will not fall. I want to assure you that all the legislators would be present at the meeting," Bharadwaj said while speaking to the press outside Kejriwal's residence.
Bharadwaj also alleged that 40 legislators of the party had been contacted by the BJP and offered Rs 20 crore to break the AAP. He also urged central agencies to probe from where "the BJP got Rs 800 crore to buy AAP MLAs."
'Lucky To Have Manish Sisodia': Kejriwal at Rajghat
After the meeting, AAP MLAs visited Rajghat to pay tribute to Mahatma Gandhi and "pray" for the failure of the saffron party's "Operation Lotus."
"We paid tributes and offered prayers to Mahatma Gandhi. We saw a few days back that there was a fake FIR registered against Manish Sisodia and CBI raided his residence for 12 hours. Even after that, they could not find any documents or unaccounted money," CM Kejriwal said while addressing the press.
Delhi Chief Minister and AAP Convener Arvind Kejriwal with party MLAs pays homage to Mahatma Gandhi, at Rajghat in New Delhi, Thursday, 25 August.
(Photo: PTI)
Kejriwal also reiterated that Sisodia had been asked to leave AAP and become the BJP's chief ministerial candidate. In return, the BJP said all cases against him would be withdrawn, he further alleged.
Praising the deputy CM, Kejriwal said that he must have done some "good deeds" in life that he got someone like Sisodia, who "has no greed for the CM's post."
He also said that the BJP needed 40 AAP MLAs to topple the Delhi government and had kept Rs 800 crore ready for this purpose.
However, he added, not a single AAP MLA accepted the BJP's alleged poaching bid. "I want to tell the people of Delhi that you have voted for an honest party. We will die but will never betray the people of the country," Kejriwal said.
'BJP Trying To Topple Delhi Govt'
AAP leader Atishi said, "BJP has been trying for days to topple the Delhi government. Our MLAs are being offered money and being threatened. Delhi's deputy chief minister was threatened too. This is not the first such attempt. BJP has attempted Operation Lotus earlier too. They've always failed, they'll always fail."
"MLAs are being contacted. Yesterday, the message was communicated and the MLAs, with whom contact could not be established, will be done and all MLAs will be present in the meeting," she added.
"MLAs are being contacted... all MLAs will be present in the meeting. BJP is preparing to break 40 MLAs," AAP MLA Dilip Pandey was quoted as saying by news agency ANI, ahead of the meet.
The AAP has 62 MLAs in the 70-member Delhi Assembly.
The Kejriwal government has also convened a special session of the Delhi Assembly on Friday, 26 August, over the CBI probes and ED raids against its ministers and the alleged "poaching" efforts by the BJP.
Meanwhile, the BJP challenged the AAP to reveal the names of those who allegedly contacted its MLAs with an offer to switch sides and charged that the Kejriwal-led party was trying hard to divert attention from the Delhi government's 'liquor scam'.
(With inputs from PTI and ANI.)
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