A total of 53 out of 62 MLAs of the Aam Aadmi Party were present at the meeting called by Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal at his residence on Thursday, AAP MLA Saurabh Bhardwaj said today, amid reports of several party legislators “missing” ahead of the crucial meeting. Declaring that the BJP’s infamous ‘Operation Lotus’ ploy to topple the Kejriwal government had failed, Bhardwaj claimed that the rest of the MLAs, who were absent, got in touch with Kejriwal over phone and assured him that they are with him “till their last breath.”
“Speaker is outside the country and Manish Sisodia is in Himachal. CM spoke to other MLAs over phone and everyone said that they are with CM Kejriwal till their last breath,” Bhardwaj told news agency ANI.
Bhardwaj claimed that the BJP was in touch with 12 of its MLAs and asked them to leave the party. The AAP legislator further said that the BJP’s main target was to topple the Kejriwal government and had offered 40 AAP MLAs Rs 20 crore each. “BJP got in touch with 12 of our MLAs and told them to break away from the party. They wanted to topple our government with 40 MLAs and were offering them Rs 20 crores each. Now we will go to Mahatma Gandhi’s memorial in Raj Ghat and pray for BJP’s failure to break over government,” Bhardwaj claimed.
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Claiming that the Delhi government is safe, Bhardwaj stated that Kejriwal has defeated BJP’s ‘Operation Lotus’ in the state.
Earlier in the day, tension was palpable in the AAP camp after reports of several of its MLAs incommunicado ahead of Kejriwal’s crucial meet surfaced. In the 70-member strong Delhi Assembly, the AAP is comfortably place with 62 MLAs, while the BJP has only eight MLAs, 28 short of the majority-mark.
