AAP sacked Kapil Mishra For ‘Poor Water Management’, Vows to ‘Reveal Conspiracy’

Two days after being sacked as tourism and water minister of Delhi, Kapil Mishra hit out against Aam Aadmi Party leader and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, accusing him of receiving Rs 2 crore in cash from Satyendar Jain, the health minister of Delhi. The allegation, first made in a somewhat cryptic tweet on Sunday morning. was explicitly stated by Mishra in a subsequent press conference in the capital.

i have witnessed HIM taking illegal cash.. have shared all details with Lt. Gov.
चुप रहना असंभव था। कुर्सी क्या प्राण भी जाये तो जाए

— Kapil Mishra (@KapilMishra_IND) May 7, 2017

Kejriwal on Friday removed Mishra from the cabinet, apparently because he felt that water management in the capital city was not up to the mark. The development came on a day when Mishra shot off a letter to the Anti-Corruption Bureau chief demanding to know why the role of former chief minister Sheila Dikshit and other senior functionaries has not been probed in the matter of the tanker scam of Delhi Jal Board.

Mishra, who is MLA from Karawal Nagar, also declared that he met Kejriwal during the day to share details of the tanker scam and would make the names of various big people involved in it public at 11 am on Sunday. At the press conference however, the sacked minister went further – accusing Kejriwal and Jain of handling a large amount of cash whose provenance, and destination, were presumably illegitimate.

Mishra’s ouster from the Delhi cabinet was announced by deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia, who said while “Kapil Mishra made a lot of effort”, the capital’s “water management was not up to the mark”. He said therefore the “chief minister decided to bring in Kailash Gahlot in his place”. Apart from this, Rajendra Gautam has also been brought in as a minister to fill another vacant slot.

Prior to this announcement, Mishra tweeted a letter he had sent to the Anti-Corruption Bureau chief on Saturday on the issue of the tanker scam probe and asked why former chief minister Sheila Dikshit has not been questioned so far.

शीला दीक्षित से अभी तक पूछताछ क्यों नहीं?
my letter to ACB Chief Meena pic.twitter.com/0odaAiOtAq

— Kapil Mishra (@KapilMishra_IND) May 6, 2017

He then announced that there would be a “massive exposé on tanker scam tomorrow (Sunday)”. “There will be an open war against corruption tomorrow,” he tweeted in Hindi.

As news broke on Saturday night that he has been removed from the Delhi cabinet, Mishra retweeted a news post which stated that before this, in 2015, he had been removed from the post of law minister after he had asked for a probe into the Delhi Jal Board water tanker scam.

Mishra did not stop there. He retweeted another news post which stated that in less than two years, he had provided piped water in over 300 colonies and controlled the tanker mafia.

Later he tweeted that he was the only minister with no corruption charges against him:

i am the only minister with no corruption charges. no CBI enquiry against me. किसी बेटी रिश्तेदार को पद नही दिया। शीला का भ्रस्टाचार खोला

— Kapil Mishra (@KapilMishra_IND) May 6, 2017

He also declared that the Aam Aadmi Party was his own, that he has been associated with the campaign since 2004 and was not going anywhere.

ये मेरी पार्टी है। 2004 से आंदोलन से जुड़ा रहा हूँ।

कहीं नही जाएंगे। यहीं रहकर सफाई करेंगे। झाड़ू चलाएंगे। कूड़ा हटाएंगे

— Kapil Mishra (@KapilMishra_IND) May 6, 2017

He also tweeted that while he had not been officially told about his removal, he had “told CM that I can’t tolerate delay in tanker scam report”. He said he had also told the chief minister that he would submit the names of those who were involved in the delay to the ACB.

Mishra later said the media was being told that he did not meet Kejriwal during the day. He demanded that the CCTV recording from the chief minister’s residence be made public to reveal the truth.

Is AAP looking for a mole?

Incidentally, while Mishra and the Delhi government are making the entire episode appear as one revolving around the water issue, it would be pertinent to note that only recently AAP MLA from Okhla, Amanatullah Khan, who was also a member of the political affairs committee (PAC) of the party, had accused founder and senior leader Kumar Vishwas of trying to engineer a split in the party at the behest of the BJP with the help of “one minister” and four MLAs. Though later Khan was suspended from the party for airing his views in public, his subsequent appointment on various Delhi assembly panels indicates that he has not fallen out with the party leadership and there may be some element of truth in his assertions.

What is peculiar about Mishra is that he is the son of former east Delhi BJP mayor Annapurna Mishra and enjoys close proximity with several saffron party leaders.

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