‘Not aam aadmi, now AAP’s a party of billionaires’: Congress leader Ajay Maken

AS 7 Rajya Sabha MPs of the Aam Aadmi company (AAP) stone-broke aside from the company to merge into the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), senior Congress leader Ajay Maken on Monday renewed his attack on the Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP, saying it had turned into a party of billionaires that had given away Rajya Sabha seats for money.“The mask has completely come off the face of AAP and Arvind Kejriwal,” said Maken, who has long been a harsh critic of AAP, which was born out of the churn of the 2011 anti-corruption movement that targeted the Manmohan Singh government at the Centre and the Sheila Dikshit government in Delhi.AAP’s seven Rajya Sabha MPs, Raghav Chadha, Ashok Mittal, Sandeep Pathak, Rajinder Gupta, Vikram Sahney, Harbhajan Singh (all from Punjab) and Swati Maliwal (Delhi) quit the Aam Aadmi Party on Friday and announced their merger into the BJP. On Monday, the Rajya Sabha secretariat started counting the seven as BJP lawmakers, raising the ruling party’s strength in the upper house to 113.The AAP is now reduced to just three MPs in the Rajya Sabha.Maken also took a swipe at the BJP, noting that a party with just 6.6% of the popular vote in the last Punjab election would now have six MPs in the Rajya Sabha.“I have always said AAP is the B-team of the BJP. They should change their name from Aam Aadmi Party to ‘Arabpati Aadmiyon ki Party (party of billionaires),” the Congress treasurer said, accusing Kejriwal of ignoring the party’s original supporters.“This is a party which did not give Rajya Sabha seat to Prashant Bhushan, Ashutosh, Yogendra Yadav or even Kumar Vishwas. But the seats were given to rich people. So, if this is done on the basis of money, this had to happen,” Maken added, “Before coming to the Press conference, I did some research. On the basis of the election affidavits, I found out that the average net worth of those seven who have left AAP for BJP comes to ₹818,50,35,420,” he said.Maken also claimed that Sushil Gupta, one of the seven rebel MPs, who left the Congress to join AAP, had done so to get the Rajya Sabha seat, “He told me before leaving the Congress that his “setting” with the AAP had been done and he would be given a Rajya Sabha seat.”With Punjab polls due next February, Maken also linked the weakening of AAP with the possible rise of divisive forces in the border state.“Punjab is a border state and plays a crucial role in safeguarding our frontiers. It has also witnessed attempts in the past by external forces to support separatist elements and create unrest. Now, once again, such separatist forces, those who want to divide the country and separate Punjab, are beginning to raise their heads,” he said.