No moral high ground for AAP to claim in Punjab

Guess how many candidates fielded by Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in Punjab figure among the 10 candidates who have declared the highest assets? The answer is three, the same number as the other two main parties in the fray, Congress and the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD). The remaining one is an Independent. AAP candidates in the top 10 crorepatis list are Bikramjit Singh from Khemkaran, Aman Arora from Sunam and Sukhpal Singh from Kapurthala.

Again, guess the percentage of candidates AAP has fielded who have reported pending criminal cases against them? Once again AAP is not far behind the other parties. It matches the percentage of Congress candidates with criminal cases, ie 12%, while SAD, ironically, is a shade behind with 11% of its candidates disclosing criminal cases against them.

Details compiled by the Association for Democratic Reform (ADR) and Election Watch reveal how AAP is matching the big two on almost all such parameters.

If 93% of the SAD candidates are crorepatis, followed by Congress (88%) and the BJP (87%), AAP is not far behind with 63% of its candidates being crorepatis. As many as 14 AAP candidates, according to the ADR Report, have not disclosed details about their Income Tax Returns, as opposed to 6 of the Congress and 3 of SAD. It’s interesting to note that at least three of these 14 AAP candidates have declared high assets ranging between ₹4-7 crore (GS Kang, Gurvinder Singh, Jagdev Singh).

When it comes to average assets of the candidates though, Congress candidates with ₹12.38 crore are way ahead of SAD candidates (₹9.26 crore), AAP (₹6.24 crore) and BJP (₹6.10 crore).

SWEEPING ASIDE FACTS

As campaigning in Punjab reaches a frenetic pace towards the close—Thursday is the last day of campaigning before voting on February 4—all parties have been throwing reckless and colourful accusations at each other, as is par for the course. But AAP has also descended into making several questionable claims about its Punjab prospects. It’s Delhi state convenor Dilip Pandey has tweeted a manipulated image showing enhanced crowds at an AAP rally. Though he would hardly be the first politician to do so, when Ankit Lal, head of IT for AAP, tweeted survey results by poll survey agencies purporting to show AAP way ahead in Punjab, it contained a fib too far.

Swaraj India leader and former AAP co-founder Prashant Bhushan alleged that each of the polls Lal referred to was fake. Then one of the agencies Today’s Chanakya tweeted denying it had conducted any such poll in Punjab and fake claims were being made in its name.

Lal, however, is clearly unfazed after the exposure by Today’s Chanakya; he has yet to delete the tweet or clarify. But worse for Lal and AAP was yet to come, when another former AAP leader and noted psephologist Yogendra Yadav tweeted this crushing indictment.

Given its claims of wanting to sweep out dishonesty from politics, perhaps AAP needs to first start the clean-up from within.