Aam Aadmi Party has cancelled the ticket of its two candidates - Govardhan Singh from Mehrauli and Rajendra Dabas from Mundk, as the internal Lokpal has found charges against them.
A day after supporters of Delhi unit chief Satish Upadhyay staged a sit-in protest against the top leadership, now the Aam Aadmi Party seems to be grappling with 'revolt' within the party.
With just a day left for filing nominations, Aam Aadmi Party has cancelled the ticket of its two candidates - Govardhan Singh from Mehrauli and Rajendra Dabas from Mundk. The party claims internal Lokpal has found charges against them.
Miffed supporters of Govardhan Singh, and Rajinder Dabas shouted slogans against the party, triggering protests outside Arvind Kejriwal's Kaushambi residence.
Instead of Govardhan and Rajendra, the party leadership has now given ticket to Naresh Yadav and Sukhbir Dalal to contest from Mehrauli and Mundka respectively.
Though AAP claimes that the party has found complaint against the candidates, one of the 'rejected' candidate Govardhan Singh said that the party had forced him to contest the election.
Govardhan Singh said, "I told them (party leadership) that I did not want to contest polls, but they forced me to."
He further added, "I had been campaigning for the last 15 days. But initially I did not want to contest. It was Kejriwal who forced me to contest saying I will be the face of the party in around 350 Jat villages in and around Delhi. This is an affront to the Jat community. This is a conspiracy," he said.
Senior AAP leader Manish Sisodia accused Govardhan's family members of transporting people in buses to the Prime Minister's rally held at Ramlila Maidan recently.
"The Mehrauli candidate Govardhan's family members had transported people in buses to the Prime Minister's Ramilia Maidan rally. That is not proper," he said.
Last month AAP had replaced its Wazirpur candidate Suresh Bhardwaj by local leader Rajesh Gupta.
Meanwhile, AAP leaders Ashutosh tweeted, "AAP believes in clean politics and if any complaint found serious/genuine against any candidate, his/her ticket will be cut last day also."
He further added, "AAP declares if anyone has any complaint with evidence against any candidate, hand over to me/Lokpal. Party will take action after investigation. Two days back we got a complaint that one volunteer had asked money for ticket, after investigation he was expelled From the party.
On Tuesday, high drama was witnessed at the BJP office as angry supporters of Satish Upadhyay shouted slogans for not giving a ticket to him. The BJP leader, who had earlier indicated his willingness to fight the polls, said he voluntarily opted out to focus on campaigning in the entire city.
Earlier on Tuesday, Kejriwal had invited BJP’s chief ministerial candidate Kiran Bedi for a public debate, after congratulating her for being nominated as the BJP’s chief ministerial candidate for the Delhi polls. He also requested Bedi to unblock him from her Twitter account.
Both Kejriwal and Bedi were part of the anti-corruption movement led by activist Anna Hazare before the AAP chief decided to form his own political party.
Bedi was named as BJP's chief ministerial candidate on Monday night and will be fielded from Krishna Nagar seat in Delhi while Kejriwal will contest Delhi from the New Delhi constituency.
The elections for the 70-member Delhi Assembly will be held in a single phase on February 7, with the counting of votes set to take place on February 10.
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