New Delhi: Days after AAP’s defeat in the Delhi Assembly elections, its former leader Ashutosh declared that the party had been “finished” long ago, with February 8 merely revealing the outcome. He sounded a warning that the Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP will find it hard to hold on to Punjab as it has “lost the morality of revolution”.
Ashutosh, who was once a close associate of Kejriwal, took to X and said that AAP was “finished” when party leaders “started taking chartered flights, living in presidential suits and building ‘Sheesh Mahals’ for themselves”. The ‘Sheesh Mahal’ word was a direct reference to Kejriwal. The BJP has alleged of massive corruption in renovating the Chief Minister’s residence — Sheesh Mahal — during his time in office.
Ashutosh, a veteran journalist, was one of the leaders of the India Against Corruption movement who later chose to set up a political party. Ashutosh fought the 2014 Lok Sabha elections but was defeated by BJP’s Harsh Vardhan. He left AAP in 2018, citing personal reasons.
In his X post, Ashutosh also pointed out that AAP leaders’ were enjoying Z+ security cover and threatening mediapersons, while doing planted interviews. He also pointed to the AAP’s pre-poll charges that Haryana has poisoned Yamuna water coming to Delhi.
He underlined that AAP was defeated because it lost its morality. “AAP became an election-fighting party. It stuck to the chair. AAP’s asset was its morality. When that was lost, the government was lost too. It would be difficult to save Punjab too,” he pointed out.
Kejriwal’s party suffered a humiliating loss in the Delhi assembly election. The BJP romped home to victory with 48 seats, while AAP could manage only 22 — 40 less than the 2020 election. Adding insult to injury, its top leaders Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia and Satyendra Jain also lost their respective seats.
What Prashant Bhushan said
In another attack on Kejriwal, AAP’s now-expelled co-founder Prashant Bhushan blamed the former Delhi CM the Delhi drubbing. In a post on X, Bhushan alleged that Kejriwal changed the nature of AAP after it was founded as a transparent platform for alternative politics.
Bhushan pointed out that a party originally founded on the ideals of alternative politics, transparency, accountability, and democracy was transformed by Arvind into a supremo-dominated, non-transparent, and corrupt entity. The party abandoned its pursuit of a Lokpal and even removed its own Lokpal.
Bhushan said Kejriwal built a Rs 45-crore ‘Sheesh Mahal’ for himself and moved around in luxury cars. He pointed out that Kejriwal discarded 33 detailed policy reports from expert committees set up by AAP, saying that it would adopt pragmatic policies when the right time comes. The ousted AAP leader said that Kejriwal “felt that politics could be done by bluster and propaganda”. This is the beginning of the end of AAP, he underlined.
