Making the going gets tough for the Aam Aadmi Party ahead crucial 2017 Punjab polls, its own candidate from Bhoa, Dr Vinod Kumar on Thursday accused the party’s top leadership of corruption.
Dr Kumar, whose candidature has already been announced by the party from Bhoa Assembly segment in Pathankot district, alleged that he has been asked to
deposit Rs 1 crore as party fund or sit back home.
Making the allegations against top AAP leaders, including State in-charge Sanjay Singh and organisational head Durgesh Pathak, Kumar said that they demanded the huge amount from him after he was allotted the party ticket.
“I was called on November 12, 2016, at a house in Chandigarh. AAP leaders Sanjay Singh and Durgesh Pathak told me that I was not campaigning properly. They told me to get Rs 1 crore deposited with them so that they could take care of my campaigning,” he said.
He added, “I told them that AAP was fighting against corruption and our agenda was to campaign and contest polls without spending money. How can anyone, who contests elections by spending Rs 1 crore, be honestIJ”
Dr Kuamr maintained that when he questioned them, they told me to take Rs 30 lakh and give up my claim on the ticket for the Bhoa seat. “I suspect that if they were demanding Rs one crore from me, they could have been offered Rs two crore by someone else to get me replaced as the AAP candidate,” he added.
“Sanjay Singh made me speak to AAP national convener Arvind Kejriwal on the issue of giving Rs 1 crore. Kejriwal told me to do as Singh has said. Singh
and Pathak have spread corruption in AAP Punjab
unit,” he alleged.
He said that he was forced to expose the corruption in Punjab AAP as he was being pressurised to pay up. “No official candidate of a
party takes this step till
there is something very serious,” he said.
AAP has announced around 80 candidates for the 117 assembly seats. Elections in Punjab are likely to be held early next year.
AAP, which has been facing infighting in the past three months, has seen allegations of collection of big amounts of money in the run-up to Punjab assembly polls being made against its top leaders from Delhi.
The AAP had suspended its Punjab convener Sucha Singh Chhotepur in August this year after a video clip surfaced, purportedly showing him taking money from a party supporter.
Chhotepur has now floated a new party, Apna
Punjab Party (APP), and is countering the AAP.