Sacked AAP Minister Kapil Mishra Goes on Fast, Attacked at Site

Mishra wants the party to make the foreign travel records of five senior leaders public, alleging that these records would reveal a lot about corruption within AAP.

Sacked Delhi minister Kapil Mishra during an indefinite hunger strike at his residence in New Delhi on Wednesday. Credit: PTI/Manvender Vashist

Mishra wants the party to make the foreign travel records of five senior leaders public, alleging that these records would reveal a lot about corruption within AAP.

Sacked Delhi minister Kapil Mishra during an indefinite hunger strike at his residence in New Delhi on Wednesday. Credit: PTI/Manvender Vashist

Sacked Delhi minister Kapil Mishra during an indefinite hunger strike at his residence in New Delhi on Wednesday. Credit: PTI/Manvender Vashist

New Delhi: Former Delhi minister Kapil Mishra, who began a fast on Wednesday (May 10) morning after the  Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) refused to divulge the foreign travel details of five senior leaders, was attacked by a youth at his fasting site behind his residence in Civil Lines. Mishra was suspended from party recently after levelling allegations of corruption against chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and minister Satyendar Jain. He was removed as Delhi water minister hours before he made his allegations public.

The youth, who was subsequently identified as Ankit Bharadwaj, jumped at Mishra while he was lying down. But he was only able to touch the agitating leader before he was pulled away by the latter’s supporters.

Though Bhardwaj later said he was angry at Mishra for having brought a bad name to the party, Mishra said the youth was entitled to have his views just as he had his own convictions.

Earlier in the day, Mishra began his fast after garlanding a portrait of Mahatma Gandhi. He also tweeted the contents of a letter he wrote to Kejriwal demanding that the details of travel of the five leaders.

“It is not a dharna but a satyagraha. I would like to send a message to chief minister Arvind Kejriwal to put out the details of the foreign tours of five leaders – Satyendra Jain, Ashish Khetan, Raghav Chaddha, Sanjay Singh and Durgesh Pathak – in public domain,” Mishra told reporters.

His reference to the Mahatma before undertaking the fast was a reminder of not only Kejriwal’s own style of agitation, it was also similar to his press conference at Gandhi’s samadhi on May 7 where he accused Kejriwal of receiving Rs 2 crore in cash from Jain.

While Kejriwal is yet to respond to any of the charges, his deputy Manish Sisodia had termed them baseless and not worth responding. Another senior AAP leader, Sanjay Singh, held a press conference on Monday and accused Mishra of working at the behest of BJP to damage AAP.

But Mishra did not stop at these allegations. He submitted a complaint to Anti Corruption Bureau and then submitted three complaints to the CBI in the water tanker scam.

He had also tweeted explaining what the three complaints were about.

Then, on May 9, Mishra had tweeted that allegations of misappropriation of donations and hawala transactions were closely linked to these revelations and wondered why the party had not disclosed these details voluntarily, as it always speaks about upholding transparency.

Mishra had also threatened to go on an indefinite fast if the details of these foreign visits were not made public – a threat he put into action on Wednesday morning.

(With PTI inputs)