Day after Kejriwal sting, Garg says 'AAP fan' threatened him - Times of India

NEW DELHI: Former AAP MLA Rajesh Garg on Thursday claimed to have received a threat call. He said the unidentified man, calling himself an AAP supporter, asked him to stop pursuing the matter beyond a point. The alleged threat refers to an audio clip that surfaced on Wednesday in which Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal can be heard telling Garg to break away six Congress MLAs who should then give outside support to AAP to form a government. This conversation allegedly took place in July 2014.

Garg told TOI: "I received the call on Thursday afternoon shortly after I returned home from court. The person kept telling me 'baat aage mat badhao'. He refused to identify himself and only said that he is a party supporter and that I will learn my lesson in some time."

Garg, now notorious for recording all his phone conversations, issued a recording of this call as well. The caller tells Garg, "Let things be. Don't pursue matters any further. I am a friend of AAP. You are smart. I won't do anything but time will teach you a lesson. I am an AAP fan." Garg has filed a police complaint in this connection.

Meanwhile, he also threatened to send a notice to senior AAP member Kumar Vishwas, accusing him of defamation. "On Wednesday, Kumar told people I had released the audio clip of Kejriwal and my conversation as I was denied a ticket. This is not true. In fact, if he doesn't give a reply to my notice, I will file a defamation case against him," said Garg.



(Illustration: Ajit Ninan)

Garg claims to have similar recordings of Manish Sisodia and Sanjay Singh discussing how to get Congress support but said it was pointless making them public now since AAP had accepted openly that they had sought Congress support in 2014 to form a government.

"All of us wanted to take outside support to form a government but I was not in favour of breaking a party. I made my stand clear to Kejriwal but when it became certain that this was the kind of politics AAP would pursue, I stopped attending all party meetings," he said.

Accusing Kumar of telling lies, he said, "Kumar is lying about me blackmailing him. It was in the last week of January, after ticket distribution was over, when I raised the matter with him. I said the party was trying to defame me by saying that I had been denied a ticket whereas I had refused to contest elections much earlier. I gave him the tape on February 17."

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