CPI slams AAP, says party looking for 'wanton martyr's status'

CPI on Thursday came down heavily on the recent dharna by Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, saying the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) was looking for "a wanton martyr's status" instead of governing and tackling problems politically.

"Many rightly believe that the Kejriwal team feels politically uncomfortable to continue in power with the outside support of the Congress. In place of tackling (problems) politically, it wants excuses.

"To be more precise, it seems to be looking for a wanton martyr's status. This is sheer nonsense," the CPI's mouthpiece 'New Age' said in an editorial.

Observing that party in power should project itself through performance and a clear approach to the socio-economic issues facing the people, it said, "It seems that the AAP is precisely avoiding it and trying to hoodwink the people by piece-meal announcement."

By staging "dramas like the one staged near Rail Bhavan, it is getting involved in the game of the corporates (and) ... playing to sidetrack the real socio-economic issues by concentrating on peripheral issues through captive media, particularly the electronic one", CPI leader Shamim Faizee, who is the editor of the party publication, said.

The past week's developments made it "obvious that most of the AAP ministers are not ready to govern and prefer to be vigilante. This attitude may harm the party itself," he said and asked the ruling party in Delhi to introspect, especially on the conduct of Law Minister Somnath Bharti.

He charged Bharti with having led a mob to the residence of four African women around midnight alleging it was a den of "prostitution and drugs" and asking the police to raid.

After the police refused to raid, "what the minister and his cronies did was totally illegal and immoral. They not only humiliated and dragged the women but forced them to go under medical test in a very humiliating and insulting manner. For all this the minister needs to be taken to task.

"But Kejriwal decided to support the minister and to distract people's attention from the real issue."