NEW DELHI: In an exclusive interview with The New Indian’s Executive Editor, Rohan Dua, BJP leader and Karawal Nagar candidate Kapil Mishra has said that former Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal once threatened him that he would have to commit suicide if Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) ever labelled him as a corrupt leader.
Mishra said this incident happened when he, as a then water minister in Kejriwal cabinet before resigning, took the files related to the probe involving corruption matters on contracts awarded in the tanker scam by the Shiela Dikshit government of 1998-2013.
“I remember his reaction when I presented a report against Sheila Dikshit’s corruption case which he himself had promised to expose. But on the contrary, Kejriwal was shocked when I asked him to act against them. Kejriwal ji’s reaction was much bigger than what I had told you earlier. He asked me to dump the file. He told me that he had so much credibility, that anyone he called corrupt would be regarded as such,” recalled Mishra.
Mishra was replying to a query by Rohan Dua when asked about his experiences with Kejriwal when he was part of AAP. Mishra was one of the many leaders who had revolted against Kejriwal to join the BJP.
The BJP leader, who is also the party’s vice president, said he kept questioning him “Why I pursued such an investigation, even though we didn’t have to do it,”
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Mishra said that Kejriwal even threatened him, ‘If I say today that you are corrupt, you would have to jump off this building and commit suicide’.
Mishra said that he was disillusioned with Kejriwal and AAP leadership who were willing to forget the principles and lofty ideals that they party had built itself on, while junking transparency and accountability for political partnerships.
Mishra said that it is because of this reason why leaders like “Alka Lamba, Yogendra Yadav, Gen V K Singh, Kiran Bedi, Shazia Ilmi, Anna Hazare, Gurpreet Ghuggi, Prashant Bhushan and Shanti Bhushan left the party to accommodate the selfish ambitions and dictatorial attitude of Kejriwal”.
