AAP candidates caught in sting operation

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) was Thursday jolted by a sting operation that showed some of its candidates including Shazia Ilmi accepting funds without proper verification, just days before the Dec 4 assembly elections in Delhi.

The sting carried out by “media sarkar” shows Ilmi, the AAP candidate from south Delhi’s R.K. Puram, willing to accept donations in cash without receipt and offering to “adjust” the amount as “salary for party volunteers”.

Taking note of the video, AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal said the guilty would not be spared and that there will be “no compromise against corruption”.

“Some sting operations done on our candidates. Our team is looking into it. We will not spare if anyone is guilty,” Kejriwal tweeted.

“We will walk the talk. There would be absolutely no compromise against corruption,” he added.

Meanwhile, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) took potshots at AAP and said the party’s greed has been exposed.

“Exposure of AAP party… avarice is the root of all evils,” tweeted BJP spokesperson Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi.

The video comes as a setback for AAP which is already embroiled in a controversy over allegations of illegal foreign funding and a tussle with Anna Hazare over funds collected during the India Against Corruption (IAC) movement.

Kejriwal and Hazare had together, under the IAC banner, held agitations against corruption in Delhi two years ago.

The AAP has made the Delhi elections a three-way affair for the first time as until now the contest was always been between the Congress and the BJP.