Atishi ‘Marx-Lenin’ Marlena, the Aam Aadmi Party candidate from East Delhi Lok Sabha constituency, speaking at a meet organised by the Jamia collective, at Tikona Park, Delhi once again voiced her party’s ideologies by saying that in order to defeat BJP even if people have to vote for goons, they should not hesitate.

“We will change politics” wali @AtishiAAP appealing people to vote for goons if it helps to defeat BJP. *slow claps* pic.twitter.com/YC0GptVIZ4 — Chowkidar Spaminder Bharti (@attomeybharti) April 27, 2019

In the above video, Atishi could be heard saying, “hum sab ki yeh zimmedari banti hai ki humein wahan pe vote aise candidate ko, aisi party ko daalna hai, jo wahan par BJP ko hara sake. Lekin humein yeh bhi pata hai sabko ki yeh ek fact hai ki poore desh bhar mein koi aisi single party nahin hai jo BJP ko hara sake. Alag alag states mein alag alag partiyan hai jo BJP ko hara sakti hai. Jaise UP mein BJP ko sirf SP aur BSP ki coalition hara sakti hai aur koi nahin hara sakta. So if we were UP voters to humein kya karna chahiye tha? Humein apna vote jaa ke SP-BSP ke gathbandhan ko dena chahiye, chaahe unka jaisa bhi candidate ho. Humare ek jaankar hai unse baat ho rahi thi. To kehte hai humare ilake ka candidate gunda hai, main kya karu? I said abhi aankh band kar ke coalition ko daal do vote. Because this is an election jahan par BJP ko harana zaruri hai.”

It is our responsibility that we vote that candidate, that party who could defeat the BJP. But we all know that there is no single party which can take on the BJP and defeat them. So we need to vote for other state parties. Like in UP, only BSP-SP could defeat the BJP. So if we were UP voters what should we do? We should go and vote the SP-BSP candidate, no matter who is the candidate. Someone I know was telling me that my candidate is a gunda (a goon), what should I do? I said just vote for him blindly because it is more important to defeat the BJP, Atishi said.

Marlena was speaking at a talk organised by Jamia Collective. Jamia Collective is an Islamic organisation initiated in the year 2015 with a strength of merely 1577 followers on Facebook. This biased organisation which claims to be the platform of artists and intellectuals and has been a host to several self-proclaimed intellectuals like journalist Saba Naqvi and Javed Akhtar, this time chose the controversial Atishi Marlena as their guest of honour.

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The credentials of this so-called youth icon and a revolutionary as claimed by the Lutyens cabal, are as dubious as her last name. Atishi, who had earlier changed her name to ‘Singh’ is back to being ‘Atishi Marlena’ in her 2019 election affidavit.

In August 2018, AAP leader Atishi Marlena had dropped her last name ‘Marlena’ from her name. It was alleged that the name was dropped because it was ‘Christian sounding’, which may not be suitable in her campaign during Lok Sabha elections. The party had denied the allegations, saying that her real surname was Singh and the Marlena surname was given by her parents, which is a combination of Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin.

Subsequent to this change, the party poster carried only her first name Atishi, and she had changed her Twitter handle from @Atishimarlena to @AtishiAAP. The name was also changed in all party records and campaigning materials and on the AAP website.

In fact, the AAP, a spent force that has been begging Congress, a party with zero MLAs in Delhi for an alliance, had clearly used Atishi as a gizmo to play on the caste and religious sentiments of the voters.

However, AAP party playing such dirty tricks to remain in the competition is not new. In fact, a former journalist turned politician Ashutosh, who quit the AAP on August 15 last year, also alleged that Arvind Kejriwal and Aam Aadmi Party had forced him to mention his last name when he contested 2014 Lok Sabha election from Chandni Chowk constituency in Delhi. He further said that despite the fact that he is not using his surname in the public, the party chose to include his surname, which was protested by Ashutosh. He further added that he was advised not to drop his surname as it would be difficult to win because ‘many people of his caste were voters’ in that area.