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Journalism of Courage
At every step of AAP’s nascent, and often tumultuous history, is a sting operation. It began as a deterrent for corruption and the aam aadmi’s weapon against harassment.
But since then, even as the party has used recordings to counter what they see as threats outside and from within, such sting recordings have often brought embarrassment to the party as well. In the infighting that broke out in the party, the sting was a central figure.
Even before it came to power, the AAP had been warned of the unpredictability and dangers of sting politics.
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In November 2013, as the party prepared to fight its first election, a series of recordings emerged claiming that its prospective candidates and leaders — including Shazia Ilmi and Kumar Vishwas — were not as clean as they claimed to be. The party, at the time, fought back claiming that each one of the stings were doctored or deliberately misconstrued.
As Kejriwal took oath with his 28 MLAs in 2013 — riding on an anti-corruption plank — the sting was his first gift to people.
“People felt empowered and bribe takers were afraid of being recorded. It is the one thing that most worked for us in this election. Most people admitted that if all else failed, people had stopped taking money while we were in power,” a leader said.
Since then, the sting has always been a leitmotif for the AAP. It was a sting recording against BJP leader Sher Singh Dagar by MLA Dinesh Mohaniya that reinforced the idea that the BJP was attempting to buy MLAs in the aftermath of the resignation, leaders said.
In the past year, however, the sting has brought much infamy to the AAP as well. First it emerged that a Kejriwal aide had recorded a conversation of a journalist, who said in the recording that it was Yogendra Yadav who had given her information that was reportedly critical of his own party’s National Convenor. If anything, it told the story of how deep the factionalism went with the AAP’s infighting out in the open.
What has followed is a series of recordings of Kejriwal himself by his own party members. Former Rohini MLA Rajesh Garg’s recording saw Kejriwal purportedly asking him to “break the Congress”, while volunteer Umesh Singh released a recording where an angry and abusive Kejriwal uses the words “kamine” to describe the Bhushan and Yadav camp.
Questions remain on whether these stings are incriminating at all, but it is clear that as much as the sting was in its armoury it is also a weapon against the AAP.
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