New Delhi: A combative Arvind Kejriwal on Saturday sounded the battle cry for all the 20 Aam Aadmi Party MLAs who are staring at disqualification in the office of profit case and asked them to be prepared to "fight at every level" in the coming days.
The Delhi Chief Minister made it clear that if a re-election were to be held, their focus should be on not just winning, but ensuring that Congress and BJP lose their deposits.
Briefing the media after the meet, deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia attacked the Election Commission, calling the decision to recommend the disqualification "illegal, undemocratic and unconstitutional".
Sisodia said that the MLAs have sought time from President Ram Nath Kovind to present their case as the poll panel gave its decision without hearing them. "We request the President to send the opinion back to the Election Commission and ask it to take cognizance of the proof of innocence of the MLAs, hear their witnesses and then give its opinion," he said.
The Election Commission had on Friday asked the president to disqualify 20 of its MLAs for holding offices of profit, setting the stage for their ouster from the assembly. The commission said the party MLAs, by occupying the post of parliamentary secretaries between March 13, 2015 and September 8, 2016, held offices of profit, and were liable to be disqualified as legislators.
The party's Rajya Sabha-elect Sanjay Singh, PAC members Ashutosh and Pankaj Gupta, minister Gopal Rai and spokesperson Dilip Pandey held separate press conferences in Lucknow, Nagpur and Delhi and lashed out at the poll panel.
Other AAP MLAs, too, were in a fiery mood after the meeting and trained their guns on the EC. Adarsh Shastri, MLA from Dwarka said, "For me, clearly we see that the CEC has been biased. We know he has been working with the Chief Minister of Gujarat for ten years and so it is obvious that one day before his retirement on Monday, he wanted to take a decision like this. We will go to the Court and get relief."
Shastri said that AAP has approached the President because he the highest constitutional authority and he has a moral and constitutional obligation to ensure that justice takes place under his watch. "If worse comes to worst, we are ready and prepared for elections and I can assure you that we will win back all twenty seats (sic)," he said.
Gupta said that had any of the twenty MLAs availed of any benefits, it might have caused a rift, but that was not the case.
Alka Lamba, the MLA from Chandni Chowk said that all twenty MLAs have told the CM if push comes to shove and they get disqualified, they will work to strengthen the government from outside. Another MLA said that due to the decision, the attention within the party has shifted from AAP’s controversial Rajya Sabha choices to the new threat looming over them.
"Election Commission claims that it has heard us, so it must have our statements too. Let them tell what was the number of my official car, which bungalow was allotted to me, who were the government employees in my home, how much money was given to me and from which account?" asked Sadar Bazaar MLA Som Dutt.
"Woh kehte hai phaansi chadha do, hum puchte hain bhai, murder kiska hua yeh to bata do? (They want us to be hanged, but can they tell who have we murdered?)," he added.
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