New Delhi: The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Tuesday, August 23, alleged that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) offered Rs 5 crore to its MLAs to topple the Delhi government.
“Our MLAs were offered Rs 5 crore. We defeated BJP’s attempt to topple our government,” said AAP leader Saurabh Bharadwaj, NDTV reported.
He also indicated that he has a video proof of BJP’s “Operation Lotus” – a term used by the opposition to describe BJP’s strategy to dislodge governments by luring MLAs to its party – in Delhi.
“The moment voters choose another party in elections, the BJP starts plotting its exit. That plan is called Operation Lotus. We saw it in Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra…,” said Bharadwaj.
“They told Manish ji you come to BJP, we will make you chief minister. They tried to bring down Arvind Kejriwal’s government,” he said.
This comes days after AAP and the BJP exchanged barbs over the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) raids at deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia’s house over an alleged excise policy scam.
AAP sources have also told news agency PTI that it has the audio recording of the BJP’s “offer” to Sisodia that all cases against him will be dropped if he switched sides.
The party will make the audio recording public “when the time comes”, they added.
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“We have the audio recording of the BJP’s offer and will make it public to expose the saffron party when the time comes,” one of the sources told the news agency.
Earlier, Sisodia had also claimed that he was “offered the chief minister’s post” by the BJP and a closure of all cases against him if he quit AAP and joined the saffron party.
Reacting to Sisodia’s claims, BJP leader Parvesh Verma told the news outlet, “They [AAP] get their own workers to make phone calls. Their claims cannot be taken seriously.”
AAP leaders backed Sisodia’s claims but neither they nor the deputy chief minister disclosed the name of the person from the BJP who had approached him with such offers, PTI reported.
At a press conference, AAP national spokesperson and Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh evaded a direct reply to a question on how Sisodia managed to record the BJP’s “offer” when the CBI had seized his mobile phone.
“Phone is the only medium? BJP leaders do not know what are the means they use to do such work? The BJP uses all sorts of tactics, tools and means such as phone, messengers, meetings for such work,” Singh said.
“When the time comes, everything will be ‘disclosed’,” he added.
“They [BJP] have done it [approached Sisodia]. They are making their moves. We are also making our moves. Wait, we will disclose everything when the time comes,” Singh said.
(With PTI inputs)