BJP steps up attack on AAP

BJP today stepped up the attack on AAP leaders for their alleged involvement in criminal cases and said the Arvind Kejriwal-led party should stop misleading people with its claims of being a "clean" party.
BJP leader Subramanian Swamy, in an interaction with reporters here, raised the issue of criminal cases against AAP leaders, relating to rioting and disrupting public servant in discharging duty.
He asked Kejriwal to explain the criminal cases pending against him.
"With such allegation on him, how can he claim to a clean party, he should accept the fact that they are like any other party," Swamy added.

He alleged that the party was accepting funds from abroad, including places like Bermuda and Cayman Islands which were notorious for money laundering.
Questioning what verification the party or Kejriwal had carried out before accepting the donations from abroad, he said "as a test case, a US citizen Mr Ramesh Narayanswamy has sent bogus data on passport details on the AAP website and without verification his donation of Rs 500 was accepted and a receipt was received by him."

The BJP leader said, "He has still to answer my question as to what verification he has done to ensure that foreigners do not contribute to the AAP which is an offence under Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA)."

Swamy said that Kejriwal was yet to reply to the 30 questions asked by the Home Ministry, which they have sent on November 4, on this issue.
"He must to so before December 1 and post it on his party's website so that he can meet his claimed adherence to transparency," he said.
BJP spokesperson Meenakshi Lekhi, who was also present during the press conference, accused AAP of spreading communal feeling through its manifesto and party pamphlet by asking Muslims to vote for them.
"We are filing a complaint against AAP with the Election Commission for asking Muslims to vote for them and spreading communal feeling through their manifesto which says that the party would work for their benefit and raised the issue of Batla House encounter," she said.

Asking votes by spreading communal feeling was not only the violation of Model Code of Conduct but also Representation of People's Act, Lekhi added.
She termed Kejriwal's claim of him being the Commissioner before quiting the job "as pack of lies" and said, "he retired as Joint Commissioner and his statement that he could have easily made money when an inspector could make crores, paints even the honest person in black which is not right."
"We want to know, if he had the knowledge of an inspector in his department was making crores of rupees, had he taken action against any of his juniors," she said, adding "his wife also works in the same department, so is she earning in crores?"

Swamy and Lekhi, both accused Congress of shielding Editor of Tehelka Tarun Tejpal, and said "there is involvement of some Ministers of UPA government, which even magazine's Managing Editor Shoma Choudhary had said that she was in touch with three UPA Ministers.