- Friday, April 26, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
The shadow of Maharashtra was lurking in Delhi as its chief minister Arvind Kejriwal has accused prime minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) requires 40 lawmakers in the state to topple his government and has kept a mammoth Rs 800 crore (£85 million) to accomplish the mission.
Kejriwal, who is seeking to topple the BJP government in Modi’s home state of Gujarat in election scheduled later this year, said this after a brief visit to Mahatma Gandhi’s memorial in Rajghat in Delhi on Thursday (25).
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“A day after the CBI’s (Central Bureau of Investigation) raids, (Manish) Sisodia was approached by the BJP with an offer of the chief minister’s post and to betray Kejriwal. Lucky to have Manish Sisodia, who has no greed for CM’s post. The AAP MLAs would rather die than get sold out. The BJP needs 40 MLAs to topple my government and it has kept Rs 800 crore for this,” Kejriwal told the media.
Sisodia is his deputy in the Delhi government who has come under the lens of the CBI over alleged irregularities in excise policy. He also alleged recently that the BJP offered him the chief minister’s post if he broke the AAP which he refused.
Kejriwal led AAP lawmakers to Rajghat to pray for the failure of the BJP’s ‘Operation Lotus’ which refers to the saffron party’s strategy to clinch power in states where it lacks the required number of seats to form government on its own. The strategy includes poaching and has been claimed to be successful in a number of states where the BJP has come to power later.
दिल्ली के अपने विधायक साथियों के साथ आज राष्ट्रपिता महात्मा गाँधी जी के समाधि स्थल राजघाट पर श्रद्धांजलि अर्पित कर प्रार्थना की।
सत्यमेव जयते। pic.twitter.com/9bkNG9WmeK
— Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) August 25, 2022
Recently in Maharashtra, the BJP came back to power by backing a splinter group of the Shiv Sena which previously led a coalition government comprising the Nationalist Congress Party and the Indian National Congress. Although it was apparently a rebellion in the Sena under the leadership of current chief minister Eknath Shinde against his predecessor Uddhav Thackeray, the fact that the revolting group took shelter in BJP-ruled states such as Gujarat, Assam and Goa gave rise to the suspicion that the BJP had played a role in the entire episode.
Meanwhile, reports said that after Kejriwal called a crucial meeting to discuss the BJP’s alleged poaching of AAP lawmakers and while they were scheduled to meet the chief minister at his residence in the capital on Thursday morning, sources in the party said that some of them could not be contacted, one report said.
The AAP has a massive majority in the Delhi assembly with 62 seats in a House of 70.
The AAP said on Thursday that the BJP targeted 40 of its Delhi lawmakers with an offer of Rs 20 crore each to switch sides.
According to a report by India Today, while all 62 legislators were accounted for during a meeting at Kejriwal’s residence, 12 of them said that they had been contacted by someone from the BJP to dump Kejriwal.
“All MLAs have said they will stay with the party till our last breath,” said Saurabh Bharadwaj, a leader of the party.
The report said that 53 lawmakers, including Kejriwal, attended the meeting. Seven of them were out of station while minister Satyendar Jain is in jail, said Bhardwaj. Okhla lawmaker Amanatullah Khan joined the meeting over the phone, he added.
He also tweeted a picture of the meeting saying “Operation Lotus Failed!”
This Meeting of all MLAs proves that kejriwal Govt is stable.
Operation Lotus Failed ! pic.twitter.com/wfQ5If1YYp
— Saurabh Bharadwaj (@Saurabh_MLAgk) August 25, 2022
Meanwhile, the BJP dismissed the AAP’s “poaching” claim, calling it a “public stunt”.
The AAP government has convened a special session of the Delhi assembly on Friday (26) over CBI, Enforcement Directorate probes and raids targeting its ministers and the BJP’s alleged poaching efforts.
