Delhi Chief Minister and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) national convener Arvind Kejriwal is in dock over corruption allegations by his own party colleague and ‘sacked’ Cabinet colleague as his rivals, including Congress and the Shiromani Akali Dal, are now raising the demand for his resignation.
Saying that Kejriwal’s corrupt face had been totally exposed, Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh on Sunday said that AAP leader had no moral right to continue in office. joining the demand for resignation, SAD general secretary Bikram Majithia asked AAP’s Punjab unit to tell where it stood on the latest revelations with the “corrupt and immoral Kejriwal or the party’s ideals”.
Notably, expelled Delhi minister Kapil Mishra on Sunday accused Kejriwal of taking Rs two crore from his cabinet colleague Satyendar Jain, a charge refuted by Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia.
Punjab CM Capt Amarinder said that Congress had for long been maintaining that Kejriwal was a "dacoit", who was "only interested in filling his pockets".
“Given the seriousness of the allegations levelled against him and his party over the past several months, Kejriwal should have resigned a long time ago…But being a shameless person that he is, the AAP leader will not even quit now,” he added.
Capt Amarinder demanded a CBI probe into the allegations levelled against Kejriwal by Mishra besides an action against him under the anti-corruption laws.
Claiming that Kejriwal had “lost all credibility" and his party was "in the midst of an identity crisis", with no semblance of governance left in Delhi, he said that AAP should make way for fresh elections in the national capital, which deserved "honest and clean" governance.
He urged the Delhi lieutenant Governor to initiate action against Kejriwal and his government to "free the people of Delhi from their misgovernance".
For Kejriwal, who swept the Delhi Assembly polls two years ago on an anti-corruption plank, this was a "moment of truth" which he could no longer sweep under the carpet, the Congress leader said, adding that the AAP leader should quit as Delhi chief minister immediately, before the people threw him out like they did in Punjab two months ago.
Reacting to Mishra’s allegations against Kejriwal, Singh said the "mask" was "finally and completely off the face" of the AAP supremo, whose "tryst with corruption" had started surfacing during the Punjab Assembly polls in February.
With one of his senior party colleagues now claiming that he was present in person when Kejriwal took the money from Jain, the AAP leader had lost all moral grounds to continue in office, he added.
Capt Amarinder said that the recent developments in AAP, which is in the midst of a major political turmoil following internal dissidence and widespread allegations of corruption against several of its leaders, endorsed his stand that it was a "party of liars and cheats with no morality or integrity".
"The people of Punjab had seen through the lies of Kejriwal and his colleagues during their poll campaign in the state and had judiciously kept them out of power," he said, adding that AAP’s "shameful lack of morality" had been exposed time and again by its own leaders and workers in the recent months.