Lok Satta Party has expelled Anurag. Good. But serious allegations of financial impropriety have now surfaced.

I’m glad that Lok Satta Party has expelled Anurag Kejriwal, their Delhi President. This was my basic expectation, as outlined yesterday here. I also sent an email to a senior LSP office bearer (extract below):

LSP can’t shrug off such a thing as part of “due process”. A political party is NOT a court. It must act on balance of probabilities to defend its reputation, not ‘beyond reasonable doubt’. And in this case all bounds have been breached. Most problematically, This is about the many places where JP is directly implicated by Anurag. JP is directly liable to speak out.

Expulsion of Anurag is  a bare minimum under the circumstances. No matter how badly the recording was allegedly ‘doctored’ [claimed by Anurag], there are clear words from his mouth. In the public mind, Anurag holds a very high position – as President of the Delhi (north Indian) branch. He represents the kind of leaders LSP has, just like the scam-infected leaders of Congress/BJP represent those parties in the eyes of the public. 

In addition, JP has made a public statement on this matter yesterday in a press conference, below:

Now I can’t unfortunately understand what he said but presume he is suggesting how ridiculous claims are the claims of Anurag Kejriwal. I would appreciate if someone can translate this into English.

The actions have been swift and damage control undertaken quickly. I hope this will address most of the issues surrounding Anurag Kejriwal.

But there’s more.

I’m extracting from an email from a senior Lok Satta worker in north India who recently resigned from LSP – and would like LSP to comment on this, as well, for it contains startling information re: the inner workings of the party:

Honestly, I do not doubt the integrity of JP. The bigger issue for larger failures of LSP is that JP lacks organisational skills and somewhere lacks the energy to steer the organisation in a pro active way (In the 5 yrs of our association, Despite an execellent UP team that we had built, JP never visited UP in different districts or telephoned proactively for updates on progress. never).

I feel sad and pained for JP. For Organisational building, he had given charge in absolutely wrong hands.(This is again the leadership competency for which someone has to take the blame). Mustan Tambawala and Nikhil Mehta left National council of Lok Satta Party on Integrity issues as far as I know from my discussions with Mustan.

I also came to know that the ex-National council member from Delhi, Deepak Gupta had been removed from his position because he questioned the way organisational funds were being transferred by Lok Satta party into the personal account of the Delhi President Anurag Kejriwal for organisation building(or his personal building ?).

For the UP Team,initially we were promised that every penny coming from any state will be paid back to that state for organisation building. However, our deposited funds were never sent to us. The only option given to us was to get the funds in the same manner as Anurag Kehriwal was doing. This method was totally unacceptable to the UP team.I do think this is an Integrity issue in a manner.

I will forward this blog post to a senior LSP office bearer and seek his comment, and JP’s public comment.

It appears that the selection of Anurag as President was a BIG problem. Was JP sleeping? Were senior LSP leaders unaware of what was going on? Why did Mustan Tambawala leave? Why was Deepak Gupta removed from his position? 

Have public funds been used by Anurag Kejriwal for private purposes? If so an FIR should be lodged against him and he should be put behind bars.

I believe such matters are not “dirty laundry” but CRUCIAL SUNLIGHT to identify any dirt or malpractice, and by addressing such problems, strengthen the liberal movement.

I can understand Congress/BJP/AAP being completely flooded with black money/ corrupt people. But liberal parties must not only maintain the HIGHEST standards, but must be seen to maintain them. We have no business to be in politics if we don’t establish and maintain the highest benchmarks in public life.

FTI’s Code of Conduct is extremely stringent and severe. I’d expect ALL LSP leaders to maintain such standards.