Following the high drama witnessed on Monday at Aam Aadmi Party's Press conference, party convener Arvind Kejriwal pointed fingers at Congress and BJP.
He said that his political opponents are insecure and the act of spraying paint on him and his party members is a result of their insecurity. A man, claiming to be Anna Hazare supporter and BJP activist from Maharashtra, threw black paint at him and other party members present. Nachiketa Vaghrekar entered the Press conference venue and threw a can of black paint at Kejriwal and his colleagues Manish Sisodia, Sanjay Singh, lawyers Prashant Bhushan and Shanti Bhushan. later, a case under Section 448 and 504/34 of the IPC was registered against Nachiketa at the Parliament Street Police Station and he was arrested. Police is now on the lookout for his aides, who were distributing pamphlets against the AAP, outside the venue of the Press conference.
Kejriwal had called for a Press conference on Monday evening to respond to a letter sent to him by social activist Anna Hazare in which he asked the party if the funds meant for the Jan lokpal movement were being misused by AAP for Delhi Assembly elections.
"Now you see we have so many rivals and what all they can resort to. They are insecure about the elections and are scared of us. Such things will happen with us because of their insecurity. We are not scared," said Kejriwal. "This is the cheap trick of the Congress and BJP, who are hand-in-glove and hire such nuisance creators for cheap money," added Kejriwal.
Earlier, clarifying his stand on the passage of Jan lokpal bill, Kejriwal said, "This lokpal bill will not be binding on the central government but will be confined to the city government. We are talking about the same bill which was passed by the Uttarakhand Government in 2011."
This was a contrary to AAP stand , which has been claiming for a while. Answering another query by Anna, Kejriwal clarified that Rs 23 lakh meant for the lokpal movement had been spent on the movement itself and no money from the donations had been spent on the party campaign. He also clarified that neither he nor the party was using Anna's name or image on any of its posters or banners used for campaign.
Kejriwal also said that he will withdraw his nomination from the Delhi Assembly elections if he was found guilty of any kind of misappropriation of funds. "I propose that if Anna has doubts in his mind, he may ask Justice Santosh Hegde or any retired judge of the Supreme Court, to carry out a thorough investigation of our party. If I am found guilty regarding collection and use of party funds, I will not contest in the upcoming elections," he said.
later in the evening BJP distanced itself from the man who heckled him, saying he is a former member of the party and has been active in Anna Hazare's movement. "Nachiket was a former BJP member and was working with our IT cell some three years ago. Since then, he has been active with the Anna movement and India Against Corruption for the last two years and is currently not a Maharashtra IT cell member," a BJP spokesperson Meenakshi lekhi said in a statement.