AAP MLA Akhilesh Pati Tripathi on Thursday appeared before the Anti-Corruption Branch (ACB) in connection with the poll ticket bribery case, officials said.
On Tuesday, the ACB arrested Tripathi’s brother-in-law and his two associates for allegedly demanding Rs 90 lakh as bribe for arranging a ticket to a party worker’s wife in the civic polls.
A senior ACB official said Tripathi was asked to appear at 11 am. He is being questioned, the official said.
The incident came to light on Monday after a person named Gopal Khari, who claimed to have been associated with the AAP as an active worker since 2014, approached the ACB with the complaint, according to an official statement on Wednesday.
Khari met Tripathi, the Model Town MLA, last Wednesday (November 9) with a request for a ticket from AAP for his wife to contest the upcoming Municipal Corporation of Delhi elections from Ward No. 69 in Kamla Nagar, the ACB said.
Tripathi allegedly demanded Rs 90 lakh to secure a ticket for Khari’s wife. Khari paid Rs 35 lakh to him. He also allegedly gave Rs 20 lakh to AAP MLA Rajesh Gupta on Tripathi’s insistence, according to a complaint.
Khari had told Tripathi the remaining amount would be paid after getting the ticket, it said.
On Sunday, the complainant did not find his wife’s name in the list of candidates released by the AAP.
Later, Tripathi’s brother-in-law Om Singh contacted Khari and assured him that the ticket would be given to him in the next election. Singh also offered to return the bribe, it stated.
On the intervening night of Monday and Tuesday, the ACB laid a trap at the Khari’s residence, where Singh and his associates — Shiv Shankar Pandey and Prince Raghuvanshi — were caught when they came to return Rs 33 lakh from the money received on behalf of Tripathi.
The three were arrested under the Prevention of Corruption Act and the Indian Penal Code. Pandey is the personal assistant of Tripathi, the ACB said.
The complainant has also submitted audio and video recordings of his purported dealings during payment and return of the bribe amount. An investigation is on to unearth the whole cases and to collect evidence, it added.
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