chandigarh:
Congressional Navjot Sidhu has accused Arvind Kejriwal of falsifying data while choosing Bhagwant Mann as the chief ministerial face of his Aam Aadmi party in Punjab. Mr Sidhu called Kejriwal a “fraud” at a press conference this afternoon and said he wrote to the Election Commission to flag what he called a “fake propaganda” and that a notice was sent to the party.
Last week, AAP named Bhagwant Mann as his chief ministerial face, saying he received more than 93 percent of the vote in a televote where people were asked to call up their pick for the top position. Navjot Sidhu, Kejriwal had said, got 3 percent of the 21 lakh-plus votes received, Kejriwal had said.
“It is clear that AAP will win the elections in Punjab. In a sense, the person who is elected as Chief Ministerial candidate will be the next Chief Minister of Punjab,” Mr Kejriwal had said in Mohali.
Mr Sidhu, who heads the ruling Congress in Punjab, said Congress has complained about AAP’s “Janta Chunegi Apna CM” drive to the Election Commission and asked it to investigate the matter through call and message logs. Citing the Model Code of Conduct, the party has demanded that a criminal case be filed against AAP and its party chief if the campaign is found to be fake.
“A show cause announcement was sent today. He (Arvind Kejriwal) is trying to fool the people of Punjab with his dirty tricks…AAP has created a hybrid model of fake news,” Sidhu told reporters today .
“The Aam Aadmi party claims that they have received about 7 lakh WhatsApp messages, 2.5 lakh voice messages and about 8 lakh voice calls. If we try to fit this data into mathematical calculations, it makes no sense at all. Usually such calls last at least 15 seconds, then only 5760 can be answered in one day and that will increase to 23,040 calls in four days,” Sidhu wrote to the election commission.
“They issued a personal number for the televoting option to choose a CM face. Within a second, they claimed to have received 12 messages, which is not possible,” Sidhu told reporters.