Delhi Polls: Former AAP volunteer Karan Singh leads money laundering charge against team Arvind Kejriwal

NEW DELHI: The irony is hard to miss for the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). The Delhi elections, this time, has been more about fighting former fellow travellers than BJP or Congress.

First, Kiran Bedi, Arvind Kejriwal’s comrade-in-arms from the Anna movement, crossed over to BJP and became its CM candidate. And now the face of AAP’s latest challenge is again someone who was once one of their own.

Meet Karan Singh, 35, a former party volunteer, leading the charge against AAP’s alleged dubious funding. Once considered close to the AAP convenor, he was appointed by former Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal as the chief public grievance redressal officer of the Delhi government during the party’s short stint in power. After AAP relinquished power and its embarrassing defeat in the Lok Sabha elections, Singh was formally given the charge of collating volunteer feedback within the party in May.

This relationship ended abruptly just two months later when he was expelled from the party on the grounds of indulging in ‘anti-party activities’. Singh was accused of inciting rebellion among volunteers at the behest of BJP.

Contrary to popular perception AVAM, which led by Singh has accused AAP of money laundering, did not come up overnight. It has been around for almost eight months and was the reason why Singh and Kejriwal drifted apart.

According to several volunteers who to spoke to ET, things started changing right after Singh was assigned the responsibility of coordinating with volunteers in May. The main point of contention was his plan to form a platform for volunteers to voice their concerns called the AAP Volunteer Action Manch or AVAM.

“The blueprint looked great on the face of it, but in reality it would have created a parallel organisation within the party. I also suspected he was too ambitious because he kept pushing for his nomination to the political affairs committee of the party as the representative of the volunteers,” said an office AAP office-bearer, who did not wish to be identified. “He also wanted some volunteers to be paid for their work.”

Singh has rejected these charges. “I moved from Chandigarh to Delhi to join Arvind Kejriwal’s movement at his behest. He gave me the responsibility to collect volunteer feedback because they liked the work I had done during the last assembly elections. Just because my plans of facilitating this feedback did not suit them they are now calling me a BJP agent,” he told ET.

Singh justified the AVAM initiative on the ground that it was necessary for inner party democracy, while the party grew suspicious of his ways as he continued holding meetings with volunteers without the approval of senior leaders. The internal tussle led to a show-cause notice on July 12 and eventually his expulsion on grounds of indiscipline.

Singh continues to act as the convenor of AVAM even though the party has distanced itself from it. AVAM claims to have the support of a little over 1,000 volunteers of AAP. Ever since Singh’s expulsion, it has staged a 49-day dharna at Jantar Mantar against Kejriwal in August last year and has done some ineffective sting operations against a few AAP candidates. The press conference on Monday was its latest effort to expose the wrongdoings of Kejriwal and his party.

Ironically several volunteers, disillusioned by AVAM’s growing viciousness towards AAP, have also left Singh’s movement.