In a face saving move after the independent organisation threatened to take action against the party, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Tuesday issued a clarification stating that stating it was ‘misinformed’ about the survey, which was quoted by the party’s convener Arvind Kejriwal and leader Shazia Ilmi to claim that the corruption has declined in the city.
“Ilmi learnt about a survey that showed a dramatic fall in the levels of corruption in Delhi after Aam Aadmi Party Government came to power. Since the information came from someone who was an employee of Transparency International, she (Ilmi) assumed that it was a Transparency International survey,” said the party’s statement on the controversy. “Since then we have come to know that the said survey had no connection with Transparency International and the source of Shazia Ilmi’s information had quit Transparency International by then. We regret this error,” the statement added.
Transparency India’s Anupama Jha who Ilmi had spoken to however said, “My study shows that the corruption has declined at the lower level, but I never shared this information with any of the AAP’s leaders. I have known Arvind Kejriwal for a long time but I haven’t met him recently. Also, I had met Shazia Ilmi three years back. I had quit transparency India 15 day back, because of which the confusion has been created. However, I am not aware if someone has leaked any report to the party.” Ilmi, however, said that an independent agency had conducted a survey which states that corruption has gone down in Delhi after AAP formed Government.