Not easy for AAP to wriggle out of Gujarat hawala muck
For a party that rose like a phoenix from the ashes of a massive anti-corruption campaign, the AAP’s degeneration into the cesspool of ill-gotten wealth has been total. The party, which is already embroiled in a spate of corruption cases, is now trying to shake off allegations of funnelling black money into poll-bound Gujarat through the hawala route. This newspaper was the first to expose its hawala underbelly. What seemed like a simple case of theft of Rs 20 lakh from the locked car of AAP candidate in south Gujarat’s Bardoli seat Rajendra Solanki ended up opening a can of worms.
Driver Santosh Parasar had found the car broken into and alerted his boss. Solanki first claimed it was his money and Santosh was his driver before he disowned both, saying it was party money received from an angadia (hawala outlet) and that Santosh was the AAP’s pointsman handling cash distribution in the area. The subsequent probe established the money trail originating from Punjab, going to Delhi and from there to an Ahmedabad-based angadia before its distribution through the state’s angadia network across all constituencies to bankroll party activities.
The episode also raises questions about Solanki’s political savvy since any neta with even a modicum of intelligence wouldn’t have implicated the angadia network of his party on record. Tells you something about the quality of talent in AAP’s Gujarat unit. Though the proliferation of black money during elections is the worst-kept secret of the land, no skilled political operator would ever admit himself or his party dabbling in it. AAP founder Arvind Kejriwal could well be ruing his decision to give the ticket to Solanki. With law enforcement agencies at AAP’s door, wriggling out of the charges may not be easy.
On a different note, if a party needs to bring in funds from outside in cash-rich Gujarat, it would indicate its lack of roots in the state. Parachuting and carper bombing like the party did in Goa months before elections cannot be expected to fetch tangible results. In the absence of a solid talent pool, the AAP’s latest phone-in campaign to crowdsource its chief ministerial face appears to be nothing but a jumla. And perhaps to divert attention from the black money dirt, Kejriwal sought to change media headlines by proposing to add images of Hindu deities on bank notes. That was another jumla.