In the wake of the Shunglu Committee report on certain irregularity in appointments and allotments, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leaders on Thursday accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress of raking up the report to divert attention from what it called was the detection of fraud in Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs).
“The BJP is staring at defeat and so it is resorting to mud-slinging ahead of the MCD polls,” the AAP claimed while reacting to the findings of the committee. Addressing a Press conference, AAP’s Delhi unit convenor Dilip Pandey claimed that the BJP has used similar tactics in the past and the report being made public just before the polls indicates that the party is rattled.
“When the Shunglu Committee was formed to probe the AAP Government, why has the BJP not formed any panel to look into financial irregularities in the MCDs over the last 20 years,” he said.
The three-member Shunglu committee, formed by the then lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung, has pointed out the “gross abuse of power” by the Arvind Kejriwal Government in its report.
The committee has flagged decisions including the allotment of land to the AAP for its party office, appointment of Minister Satyendra Jain’s daughter as “mission director” of Delhi State Health Mission and a number of purported AAP functionaries as “advisors”.
Commenting on the Delhi Government’s decision to allot land to the AAP for its party office, senior AAP leader Ashutosh said
the party is a recognised State party and is entitled to get space for its office.
“Has anyone asked the Congress that why does the party have an office when it has zero seats and the BJP has only three seats in the Delhi legislative Assembly,” Ashutosh said. The party, however, did not comment any more on the issue. “Every time an election comes, (they) make baseless allegations against us, which are forgotten after the elections are over. This happened in the 2015, 2014 and 2013,” Pandey said.
Pandey accused the Congress and the BJP of looting the municipal corporations for the last 20 years and asked them why no committee was set up to probe their wrong doings.
AAP leader Ashutosh said the BJP and the Congress wanted to divert attention from the Delhi Government’s work in education, health, free water and cheap electricity. “Now they want a recognised party having its Government in the State not to even have an office,” he added.,
Ashutosh said there were no irregularities but only differences of opinion between the Delhi Government and the l-G’s office which the report talked about.
The Shunglu Committee was set up by Jung in August last year after the Delhi High Court gave primacy to the l-G in Delhi’s administrative affairs.
The report was submitted in November, weeks before Jung quit. Jung’s tenure was marked by sharp tensions between his office, which reported to the Central Government, and the AAP Government.