Former Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday hit out at the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the India Against Corruption (IAC) movement and blamed them as a proxy for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its ideological mentor, Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS), in their bid to “subvert democracy” and bring down the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government.
Gandhi endorsed the remarks of AAP founder-member and civil rights lawyer Prashant Bhushan, who in an interview to a private TV news channel, has claimed that the IAC movement was “propped up” by the BJP and the RSS to bring down the Congress-led UPA government, whose rule had come to an end following the victory of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) dispensation in 2014 parliamentary elections.
“What was known to us has been confirmed by a founding AAP member. The IAC movement and the AAP were propped up by the BJP and the RSS to subvert democracy and bring down 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 following his differences with Arvind Kejriwal, who became the chief minister of Delhi five years ago and now in his second term as the CM.
The AAP had won a landslide victory in Delhi assembly polls in 2015 after it had bagged 67 out of 70 seats.
The BJP had won the remaining three seats. While the Congress had drawn a blank.
Five years on, the AAP retained its supremacy, as it won 62 seats in Delhi assembly polls held in February this year. The BJP wrested the remaining eight seats.
Bhushan has cited two specific regrets in the interview.
“In hindsight, there are two things that I do regret. One is not seeing that the movement (IAC), to a large extent, was supported and propped up by the BJP and the RSS for their own political purposes to bring down the UPA government and get themselves in power.”
He added: “I have no doubt about their (RSS and BJP) role today. He (Anna Hazare) was also probably not aware of it. But Kejriwal was aware of it and I have little doubt about it. The second regret is that I had failed to understand Kejriwal’s character. I understood it too late by which time we had created another Frankenstein-like monster.”
Besides Bhushan, another founder-member of the AAP and pollster Yogendra Yadav was also expelled allegedly over anti-party activities.
The IAC movement was dominated by strong anti-corruption protests against the UPA government in 2011 and 2012.
