New Delhi: With a complaint against the BJP over alleged "buying" attempts, Aam Aadmi Party's Delhi legislators led by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal will meet President Droupadi Murmu on Wednesday. The party says the BJP has been misusing central government's agencies and offering "Rs 20 crore each" to some of its MLAs to switch sides. It cites the liquor policy probe against Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia as an example of "the attempts to intimidate".
The appointment granted by the President on AAP's request is its next step after a session of the Delhi assembly, where it proved its numbers again in a display of unity and heft.
Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal with his deputy, Manish Sisodia, in the Delhi assembly where they attacked the BJP and its central government, earlier this week.
The trust vote, it stressed, had underlined the failure of "Operation Lotus", a term derived from the BJP's poll symbol, often used by Opposition parties to refer to "poaching" of MLAs by the Centre's ruling party.
The BJP has denied the allegations, and said the AAP is trying to divert attention from corruption cases.
But AAP's Rajya Sabha member Raghav Chadha today said to NDTV in an interview, "The more Arvind Kejriwal's popularity rises at the national level, the more they will attack our leaders."
In the assembly yesterday, during a discussion on the trust vote, Mr Kejriwal said that CBI's searches at Manish Sisodia's home and bank would increase the AAP's appeal in Gujarat. He claimed the party's vote share in Gujarat had increased "by four per cent" and it would rise "by another six per cent" if his second-in-command were to be arrested.
He called Mr Sisodia "fakkad kangaal" (pauper) to say that he doesn't have any greed, and reiterated that the AAP is a "kattad imaandar" (radically honest) party.