Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Model Town MLA Akhilesh Pati Tripathi on Thursday appeared before the Anti-Corruption Branch (ACB) of the Delhi government in connection with the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) election ticket bribery case, reported news agency PTI, citing officials. He had allegedly demanded Rs 90 lakh as a bribe for securing a ticket to an alleged party worker’s wife for the upcoming MCD polls, scheduled on December 4.
On Tuesday, the ACB arrested Tripathi’s brother-in-law and two of his aides – Shiv Shankar Pandey and Prince Raghuvanshi – when they came to return a bribe amount of Rs 33 lakh on behalf of the AAP Model Town MLA.
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The incident came to the fore on Monday after a person named Gopal Khari, who claimed to be an AAP worker since 2014, approached the investigating agency with a complaint, the ACB said in a statement on Wednesday.
The ACB said that Khari in his complaint said that he met Tripathi on November 9 requesting a ticket for his wife for the upcoming polls from Ward No. 69 in Kamla Nagar. The Model Town MLA allegedly demanded Rs 90 lakh to give the poll ticket to his wife.
Khari further said in his complaint that he paid Rs 35 lakh to him, and another Rs 20 lakh to AAP MLA Rajesh Gupta on Tripathi’s insistence, adding that the remaining sum was to be paid to Tripathi after his wife got the ticket.
However, AAP’s candidates’ list released for the MCD polls on Sunday did not have the name of Khari’s wife on it.
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Later, Tripathi’s brother-in-law Om Singh contacted Khari and assured him that the ticket would be given to him in the next election, and also promised him to return the alleged bribe amount.
The ACB said that on the intervening night of Monday and Tuesday, they laid a trap and the Singh and two of his aides were caught when they came to return Rs 33 lakh on behalf of Tripathi. The trio was arrested under the Prevention of Corruption Act and the Indian Penal Code.