The newly formed AAP received another jolt on Monday when its candidate from Farukharbad constituency Mukul retuned the ticket saying he was not getting support from the local unit.
This has come as a big shock to AAP which had launched a crusade against a union Foreign Minister Salman Khursheed and his wife louise Khursheed over misappropriation of funds meant for an NGO that work for the welfare of differently able persons.
Farukhabad seem to be on the radar of AAP because when this embezzlement came to light Arvind Kejriwal had declared that his party will field a strong candidate against Salman Khursheed. He even held his first rally in UP in Farrukhabad.
"I am forced to return my ticket as I didn’t required support from the party unit. I am a journalist I do not have funds with me to run an election camping I was assured that I will get financial assistance from central unit. Not only I was denied financial support but also the local unit didn’t supported my candidate" Tripathi told reports in Farrukhbad,
There were other candidates too which had returned their ticket including Yogesh Dai (Saharanpur), Illyas Azmi (lakhimpur) and Abhilasha Jatav (Jalon), whereas Khalid Parvez was asked not to contest from Moradabad after a case of defaulting cropped up.
Attacking AAP leadership, Mukul said whenever I tired to call party leader Sanjay Singh he never answers the calls made to him from my side. "When Arvind Kejriwal came to Farukhabad the local unit collected around Rs 15 lakh out of which only Rs four lakh was spent. The probe should be conducted of embezzlement of funds done by local unit," he added.
Not only candidates, office-bearers of AAP were alleged asking money in return of party’s ticket. later they were sacked by party Convener Kejriw3al himself. Former Convener Awadh Zone, Aruna Singh and Treasurer AAP Hardio, Ashok Kumar were expelled from the party.
"The candidature of Mukul Tripathi and some other candidates were cancelled by the party due to lack of interest shown in campaigning by the individual and some of them were not meeting the guidelines set by the party," justified Vaibhav Maheshwari, a member of AAP State Secretariat.