Sting in the tale: Kejriwal's one-time masterstroke could be AAP's undoing

New Delhi: The Aam Aadmi Party’s bizarre fascination with sting operations is proving to be its undoing. What was supposed to be a weapon to catch political rivals off-guard has now started threatening to rip the party apart. The big casualty amid a flurry of selective leaks of private conversations in the media has been mutual trust. [caption id=“attachment_2151351” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. AFP[/caption] As recent developments suggest, everyone in the party has been busy stinging the other. Party sources, some of whom are legislators, say they are so scared of using their mobile phones that they have started using different numbers to get in touch even with family and friends. Many are tense, fearing that what they could have told party colleagues in unguarded conversation a year ago may become public. It’s an Orwellian situation from which there’s no escape. It all goes back to Arvind Kejriwal, the party’s convener. He exhorted all, while taking oath as Chief Minister in 2013 and again in 2015, to conduct sting operations “by recording any wrong-doing and clicking photos on their mobile phone handsets”. If he wanted it to be a tool fight corruption, his party men took it in entirely the wrong way. Party sources say there’s a ‘dirty tricks department’ dedicated entirely to sting operations against rivals within. It serves the interest of the coterie close to Kejriwal. “The key person behind these filthy sting operations is a former IT professional, who’s believed to be close to Kejriwal. Gradually, public would come to know the real face of the AAP, which is being cleverly hidden behind an intellectual mask. A year ago, I had said that the party would get divided. Now they are the victims of their own dirty tactics,” said Karan Singh of AAP Volunteers’ Action Manch (AVAM), a splinter group of the AAP. An allegation levelled against Kejriwal by an ex-MLA of AAP from Rohini, Rajesh Garg has opened a can of worms. An audio tape of purported conversation between Kejriwal and Garg has revealed how the AAP leader was heard talking about splitting the Congress. “We are ready to form the government, but Congress is not ready to support us. Manish (Sisodia) is in touch with the Congress. Do one thing, split the Congress and ask their six MLAs to float a new party and support us,” Kejriwal was purportedly heard saying in a telephonic conversation with Garg. Though this is the first incident where a direct allegation (with evidence) - the veracity of which is yet to be established - has been levelled against Kejriwal himself, there are incidences of stings allegedly conducted either by the AAP or its followers. BJP national secretary Shrikant Sharma said, “Kejriwal used to ask his people to do stings and record any wrongdoing. His own people have recorded and presented his true picture before the world. Kejriwal’s real face today stands exposed before the world as one having no principles and is only seeking to grab power.” A few sting controversies: By AAP and against AAP 1. November 2013: AAP member from Lucknow Nutan Thakur had resigned from the party expressing unhappiness over the alleged involvement of party members in a sting operation and said, “I have resigned from the party after I saw the way the party handled the sting operation.” 2. November 2013: Prior to Delhi Assembly poll, AAP had filed a criminal defamation against a Hindi news portal Media Sarkar over the sting operation which allegedly showed some party leaders agreeing to help push property deals and resolve financial disputes in return for cash donations to the party. 3. January 2014: Following AAP’s advice, a businessman conducted a sting operation against a police sub-inspector of Vikaspuri police station and later Delhi government’s anti-corruption branch arrested the cop for allegedly taking a bribe to recommend a revolver license to the businessman. 4. August 2014: AAP allegedly conducted stings on AVAM, allegedly to malign the latter in public. “Delhi’s Health Minister Satyendra Jain, the then head of AAP’s disciplinary committee, who had expelled me, planted his aide Rajesh Gupta in AVAM. This man on pretext of helping us with monetary contribution, conducted a sting on our volunteers. The tape purportedly showed us taking ‘money’ from the BJP and was made public to demoralize our volunteers and tarnish our image,” alleged Karan Singh. “Later, Rajesh Gupta at the last moment used those ‘fabricated tapes’ to blackmail the party and procure a ticket for himself to contest from Wazirpur Assembly seat and won,” alleged Singh. 5. March 2015: Kejriwal’s personal aide Bibhav Kumar allegedly recorded a telephonic conversation with a journalist — without her knowledge, to build a case against Yogendra Yadav and made it public. An unprecedented incident, where a political party revealed its source in the media. A former MLA Rajesh Garg released a tape in which Kejriwal is purportedly heard saying that they are willing to poach Congress MLAs to get them to support the AAP government.  Another tape was leaked in which Kejriwal is reportedly heard rejecting the call for 11 seats for Muslims saying that the community was looking to them to stop the Modi wave across the country. “AAP has a strong fascination for conducting sting ops and it’s a standard procedure within the party. They secretively record communication of their own leaders and volunteers. The sting they conducted on the AVAM is a known fact,” former TV journalist and former AAP leader Shazia Ilmi said, If AAP brought freshness and novelty in Indian politics, its entry has also led to rampant violation of mutual trust, privacy and confidentiality. Interestingly, Kejriwal, knowing that the same tool could be used against him, created alibis to protect himself. On 28 January, ahead of the Assembly polls, he had alleged that opposition parties in New Delhi were going to release a fake sting operation against his party. “We’ve got information that opposition parties are going to make some baseless allegations against AAP in the next few days. I appeal to the people of Delhi not to believe these allegations against AAP,” Kejriwal had said. But this time, Kejriwal, who is apparently undergoing a treatment in Bengaluru and cleverly keeping himself out of the crisis brewing within the AAP, failed to anticipate the sudden blow from his party colleagues. “The latest episode is really damning. It’s an established practice within AAP and the entire coterie of Arvind is involved in this kind of base activity. Arvind is apt in backroom operations, which is used as an alibi to justify his own stand in future and create a negative perception against his opponents,” said Rakesh Agarwal secretary of NGO - Nyaybhoomi, who was closely associated with Kejriwal for 14 years. Hartosh Singh Bal, political editor of The Caravan, said: “What has happened is absolutely unbelievable. Is Kejriwal now going to record his conversations with senior politicians and bureaucrats and use it later to his advantage?” Will Kejriwal and co call for a moratorium on stings now and re-establish trust? Or is it going to be a case of, to twist an old saying, those who live by the sting perish by the sting?