Former Congress Speaker Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday attacked the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the India Against Corruption Movement (IAC) and blamed them as representatives of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its ideological mentor, Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh. (RSS), in its bid to “subvert democracy” and overthrow the government of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA).
Gandhi backed the comments by AAP founding member and civil rights lawyer Prashant Bhushan, who in an interview with a private television news channel, claimed that the IAC movement was “supported” by the BJP and RSS to overthrow Congress. He led the government of the UPA, whose rule had come to an end after the victory of the dispensation of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in the 2014 parliamentary elections.
“What we knew has been confirmed by a founding member of the AAP. The IAC movement and the AAP were supported by the BJP and the RSS to subvert democracy and overthrow the UPA government, ”Gandhi tweeted.
Gandhi is in the United States of America (USA), where his mother Sonia Gandhi is undergoing her medical check-up.
Bhushan was expelled from the AAP in 2015 due to his differences with Arvind Kejriwal, who became the Prime Minister of Delhi five years ago and now in his second term as CM.
The AAP had won a landslide victory in the Delhi assembly elections in 2015 after winning 67 out of 70 seats.
The BJP had won the remaining three seats. While Congress had gone blank.
Five years later, the AAP maintained its supremacy, winning 62 seats in the Delhi assembly elections held in February this year. The BJP seized the eight remaining seats.
Bhushan has cited two specific regrets in the interview.
“In retrospect, there are two things that I regret. One is not seeing that the movement (IAC), to a large extent, was supported and propped up by the BJP and RSS for their own political purposes to overthrow the UPA government and put themselves in power.
He added: “I have no doubts about his role (RSS and BJP) today. He (Anna Hazare) probably didn’t know either. But Kejriwal knew it and I have little doubt about it. The second regret is that he had failed to understand Kejriwal’s character. I got it too late, at which point we had created another Frankenstein-like monster. ”
In addition to Bhushan, another founding AAP member and pollster Yogendra Yadav was also allegedly expelled for anti-party activities.
The IAC movement was dominated by strong anti-corruption protests against the UPA government in 2011 and 2012.
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