JOIN USThe ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in Delhi claimed on Monday that the Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was trying to topple the minority government led by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal by offering crores of rupees to legislators who were willing to leave the government.
In a hurriedly called press conference, Kasturba Nagar MLA Madan Lal alleged that he was offered up to Rs 20 crore on phone initially. Later, two people met him personally and named BJP leaders Narendra Modi and Arun Jaitley to convince him to come out of the government. “The man who contacted me identified himself as someone close to Modi. He suggested that I should float a new outfit with 10 legislators and I would be made the chief minister of Delhi,” he said.
He, however, failed to give any evidence on his allegations which were rubbished by BJP leaders, including chief of BJP legislature party Harsh Vardhan and Delhi BJP president Vijay Goel. Madan Lal’s bid to reveal the political “advances” – first of which was made a day before the Assembly elections result were declared on December 8 – came a day after three non-BJP and non-Congress MLAs claimed that they were unhappy with Kejriwal government’s performance and gave a 48-hour ultimatum to fulfil the AAP’s poll promises or lose their support.
The three MLAs – Janata Dal-United’s Shoaib Iqbal, independent Rambir Shokeen and expelled AAP rebel Vinod Kumar Binny – had claimed support from other MLAs and threatened to withdraw support from the government in the House if Kejriwal failed to deliver.
Iqbal and Shoken, however, changed tack on Monday. They met Kejriwal and announced that they have withdrawn the 48-hour ultimatum after the chief minister’s assurance on attending to their concerns on water and power issue.
Earlier, despite naming BJP heavyweights for the alleged attempt to bribe him, Madan Lal admitted he had no evidence to prove them. “I tried to call back on the phone number from which a call was made to me on December 7 but it was not operational,” he said.