Embarrassed by a sting operation purportedly showing senior leaders "raising funds through illegal means," Aam Aadmi Party on Friday denounced the video calling it a conspiracy to sully the party's image. Addressing a press conference,party leader Yogendra Yadav said the media house which aired the sting operation neither replied to their mail nor handed over the raw footage of the video they had asked for. AAP has formed a committee to probe the matter and is mulling legal action against the web portal. The Kejriwal-led party has called an emergency meeting and formed a committee,which include Political Affairs Committee (PAC) members Yogendra Yadav and Sanjay Singh to probe the matter. The PAC of AAP has decided to review the evidence presented to the public and take a decision on this issue within the next 24 hours. A sting operation,conducted by web portal Media Sarkar,alleged that several leaders of AAP,including party's candidate from R K Puram Assembly Constituency Shazia Ilmi and Kumar Vishwas,who were contacted for their help in recovery of money from individuals and getting land deals done,readily agreed to extend their support in return for donations in cash to AAP. Ilmi had offered to withdraw her candidature from the Delhi Assembly elections after the sting operation. AAP convener Arvind Kejriwal has dismissed the sting operation as a "conspiracy" against his party but said it will not compromise on the issue of corruption. It said the web portal has refused to provide unedited raw footage to the party. "We had on Thursday asked Media Sarkar to provide the unedited footage of the sting operation,so that we can go through it and decide appropriate action,but they have refused to provide us the raw video," Kejriwal had said. (With PTI inputs)
