Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Saturday alleged that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) tried to “poach” seven Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLAs in Delhi, offering them Rs 25 crore each to contest elections from a BJP ticket.
In a post on X, Kejriwal said, “Recently they (BJP) has contacted 7 of our MLAs in Delhi and said, “We will arrest Kejriwal after a few days. After that we will break the MLAs…We will topple the AAP government in Delhi. You can also come. Will give Rs 25 crore and contest the elections on BJP ticket.”
“Although they claim that they have contacted 21 MLAs, but as per our information they have contacted only 7 MLAs so far, and all of them refused,” Kejriwal further said.
The AAP national convenor further said, “In the last nine years, they hatched many conspiracies to topple our government. But they did not get any success. God and the people have always supported us. All our MLAs are also strongly together. This time also these people will fail in their nefarious intentions.”
In a press conference, Delhi minister Atishi said that the BJP has started “Operation Lotus 2.0” and is trying to topple the democratically elected AAP government in Delhi.
“Operation Lotus is the tactic used by the BJP to come into power in states, where they are not democratically elected… Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, Arunachal Pradesh, and Madhya Pradesh are examples…,” she further said.
Meanwhile, refuting the allegations, Delhi BJP secretary Harish Khurana challenged AAP to name the MLAs and also those who contacted them. He added that the AAP was trying to shift focus from Kejriwal skipping ED summons for questioning in the alleged liquor policy ‘scam’ case.