Scandal a day keeps Aam Aadmi Party pot sizzling

NEW DELHI: An Aam Aadmi Party functionary will file a defamation suit against his own party's MLA, Devinder Sehrawat, for alleging that women who want to contest in the upcoming Punjab polls are being "exploited" by some AAP leaders. In a letter to AAP leader and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal yesterday, Sehrawat said: "I saw disturbing reports about women being exploited in Punjab in return of or giving promise of ticket.... The MLAs of Delhi are unaware about what is being done by Sanjay Singh, Durgesh etc as party representatives." AAP national executive members Singh and Durgesh Pathak are the Punjab observer and Punjab in-charge, respectively.

Sehrawat, a retired colonel, has been with Kejriwal since the launch of the Anna Hazare-led movement against corruption in 2011. His letter came a few days after former Delhi minister Sandeep Kumar was sacked after visuals of him in bed with unidentified women emerged. Singh, the AAP Punjab observer, told a media conference: "I repeat what I have been saying: if found guilty, I will withdraw from public life. There is no proof for Sehrawatji's allegation.... Today false allegations are being levelled. It is a BJP and Akali Dal conspiracy because they know AAP will sweep the polls." Singh added that he would file a defamation suit against Sehrawat. Anna Hazare has said he is "very saddened to see" that some of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's colleagues have gone to jail, while some others are "indulging in fraud". "I am very hurt...When he (Kejriwal) was with me, he wrote a book on gram swaraj...Will we call this gram swaraj? That's why I am very sad. The hope with which I was looking at him (Kejriwal) is over," he said. His remarks come against the backdrop of the arrest of AAP MLA Sandeep Kumar who has been accused by a woman of having raped her. He said, "I felt that way, but I am very saddened to see what his colleagues are doing. Some are going to jail, some are indulging in fraud." (With PTI inputs)