‘AAP poll loss not due to EVMs’
Following a string of electoral defeats, including the disastrous show in the recently concluded Delhi municipal elections, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Kumar Vishwas launched an offensive against the party’s national convener and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and said it’s inappropriate to blame electronic voting machines (EVMs) for the electoral defeat. AAP lost due to a “lack of” intraparty democracy and its failure to reach out to “voters and volunteers,” the prominent AAP leader said.
Mr Kejriwal and other AAP leaders have been claiming EVM rigging as the cause of BJP’s victory in the April 23 civic polls. In fact a day before the polls, Mr Kejriwal said that he feared “5 to 10 per cent” EVM tampering.
“This is not Modi wave, this is an EVM wave. This is the wave that they (BJP) used in the Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and Punjab elections,” AAP leader and Delhi minister Gopal Rai said two days ago when the municipal poll votes were counted.
Making the rift in AAP quite apparent, party leaders Kapil Mishra, Alka Lamba, and a few others have also differed with the party leadership on the EVM rigging allegation.
Mr Vishwas added that Mr Kejriwal shouldn’t have attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the surgical strikes. Reportedly, last September, the Delhi chief minister had questioned the surgical strikes on terrorist camps in PoK and had even asked proof of the same. “There is mistrust among the people for us,” Mr Vishwas told a news channel.