Following the recent sting on Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal, the man behind making the audio clip former MlA Rajesh Garg was suspended as party member
on Monday on grounds of anti-party activities.
This move has come after Garg alleged that the that the Delhi Chief Minister was trying to poach six Congress MlAs to form Government last year by releasing an audio tape. The audio tape was a conversation between Garg and Arvind Kejriwal.
According to sources in the party, Garg was a “serial
offender” and after his continuous anti-party activities, the party finally came to the conclusion of removing him and subsequently setting up an inquiry against him.
This is the second time that the party has taken such disciplinary action against a party member after Vinod Kumar Binny, a former AAP MlA, was sacked from the organisation for his anti-party activities.
Garg has reportedly recorded a telephonic conversation between him and Kejriwal, which later surfaced and was circulated in the media. Garg said he had emailed the recording of the conversation to senior party leader Kumar Vishwas. As per Garg, Kumar said that Garg was trying to blackmail him as he wanted party ticket for the Assembly election. Garg has also sent a legal notice to Vishwas for calling him a “blackmailer”.
The former Rohini MlA has not been in the good books of the party for a while. In October last year, he had questioned Kejriwal about the internal party democracy and also on whether he should have consulted people on conducting fresh polls in Delhi.
Senior leader and AAP’s Delhi unit secretary Dilip Pandey said that the party had formed a three-member committee to probe the matter. “The matter will be referred to the disciplinary committee of the Delhi unit and not the national committee, which is being headed by senior AAP leader Prashant Bhushan,” said sources.
Pandey added, “We have formed a committee comprising Health and Power Minister Satyendra Jain, AAP’s Delhi convener Ashutosh and party spokesperson Atishi Marlena. He had been involved in anti-party activities for quite some time. Now that we had the evidence, we decided to take action. He shall remain suspended until the committee takes its decision.”
Sources claim that ever since the October incident the party wanted to take action against Garg but restrained as they were already in minority. “By expelling Binny, we had already been reduced to
27 MlAs,” said a party leader. Meanwhile, Rajesh Garg was
unavailable for comment.