Aam Aadmi Party on Sunday came out to defend itself against the allegations levelled by its ousted Punjab convenor Sucha Singh Chhotepur.
The party termed Chhotepur’s allegations against party’s national convener Arvind Kejriwal on the ‘Youth Manifesto issue’ as baseles and false, “Why, as a true Sikh, Chhotepur was silent on such ‘remarks’ by Kejriwal for so many days,” asked party’s state legal cell head Himmat Singh Shergill.
“Timing of such serious allegations against Kejriwal by Chhotepur shows that when he (Chhotepur) was caught red-handed while accepting the ‘bribe’ of Rs two lakh on camera and he was exposed, he made such ‘baseless and false’ allegations against Kejriwal to divert attention from his sins,” said Shergill.
He said: “Moreover, Chhotepur himself claimed that Kejriwal made such remarks on July 29 at Amritsar, then why he kept quiet on such a serious issue for so many daysIJ...Why he (Chhotepur) did not come out of the car after listening such ‘anti-Sikhs’ comments, on which he (Chhotepur) claimed to get ‘stunned’ to listen.”
On Chhotepur’s claims that there was no official bank account of AAP and party does not issue any receipt for any donation, Shergill described it as “white lie” claiming that every single penny taken as ‘party fund’ is accounted for by the party.
“Party operates bank accounts on Zonal as well as at State level and Chhotepur himself admitted in front of Deputy Chief Minister of Delhi Manish Sisodia that he did not issue any receipt for the bribed money of Rs two lakh,” he said.
Even on the basis of his admission, two-member committee was constituted to probe the allegations against Chhotepur, he added while clarifying that all AAP rallies and public meetings are not being organised from the money of any individual leaders, rather all expenses are being borne by State level or local level organisers, which all is accounted for.