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NCP activists ransack AAP office in Mumbai

THE Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) office in Andheri, a north-western suburb, was vandalised by a group of activists, suspected to be members of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) on Saturday afternoon.

The hooligans burnt posters with images of Arvind Kejriwal, the former Delhi chief minister and AAP leader and also threw black ink all over the office. The party has filed a complaint with the local police.

The attack follows an allegation leveled by AAP leader Anjali Damania, against Maharashtra deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar, accusing him of presiding over an inefficient and corrupt power ministry in the state.

Damania, who has been nominated as the AAP candidate for the forthcoming parliamentary elections from Nagpur — where she wants to take on Nitin Gadkari, the former BJP president —said the state-owned power utility had incurred losses of about Rs220 billion over the past three years because of corruption and inefficient operations.

Damania also said that Mumbai consumers were being forced to pay high power tariffs because of the corruption of the state utility and private distributors including Reliance.

AAP had launched a campaign against Anil Ambani-controlled Reliance Infrastructure, which also distributes power in Delhi, during the assembly elections last year.

Strangely, while the AAP has accused the Congress of siding with private power distributors in allegedly charging high tariffs, many local Congress leaders have also been demanding a cut in power tariffs in Mumbai, just before the elections, hoping to exploit voter sentiment. Sanjay Nirupam, a former Shiv Sena, launched an agitation against Reliance Infrastructure, demanding a cut in tariffs.

Reliance has meanwhile filed a Rs1 billion defamation suit against Nirupam, accusing him of making false and defamatory allegations against the company.

The Bombay high court has restrained Nirupam from making any further defamatory statements.

nithin@khaleejtimes.com