After a CD surfaced showing former Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) minister Sandeep Kumar in compromising positions with two women, the Arvind Kejriwal-led party has once again hit headlines for wrong reasons.

The AAP has been facing controversies since the time it came to power in Delhi earlier this year, call it the internal rift, clash of ideas, blame-game or a lust to rule the city.

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The churning in the AAP reached a climax in April 2015, with the party expelling senior leaders Yogendra Yadav, Prashant Bhushan, Anand Kumar and Ajit Jha for allegedly violating party’s constitution and indulging in “anti-party activities”.

On their part, the four maintained that the AAP has moved away from its ideals and had turned into a party run solely by Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal and “his coterie”.

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Blaming a “lack of inner party democracy” in the AAP, its another founding member Shazia Ilmi resigned from all party positions in May 2014.

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Addressing a press conference, Ilmi praised the contribution of the party to the Indian politics but added that Kejriwal is “guided by an inner coterie which does not allow democracy within the party”.

In another development, party member Captain (retired) GR Gopinath also resigned the same year, citing “shoot and scoot politics” of Kejriwal and growing differences within the party leadership.

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In another jolt to the AAP, one of its National Executive member Ashok Agarwal resigned from the party in March 2014, saying it has become “directionless” and functions like a “private limited company”.

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The educationist and lawyer – who was associated with the party since its founding days – said in a letter to Kejriwal, AAP’s national convener, that he joined the party for “strong principles”, but the “goals for which it was created for are getting lost”.

“The movement seems to have become directionless causing doubts in the minds of people and even people like me who are today feeling the party is functioning like a private company. The connect of aam aadmi (common man) is on wean and a group of elite individuals is promoted to take over the party. Aam Aadmi has taken a back seat and what is on the mind of such individuals is personal projection at the cost of that very aam aadmi vision,” Agarwal had said in the letter.

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Shortly before the ouster of senior AAP functionaries like Yogendra Yadav, Prashant Bhushan, Professor Anand Kumar and Professor Ajit Jha, AAP leader from Mumbai Anjali Damania resigned from the party in March 2015 after allegations of “horse trading” surfaced against Kejriwal.

“I quit.... I have not come into AAP for this nonsense. I believed him.... I backed Arvind for principles not horse-trading.”

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Her decision followed allegations of horse-trading against Kejriwal. Earlier, former AAP MLA Rajesh Garg released an audio of his conversation with Kejriwal with the AAP convener allegedly discussing horse-trading in 2014.

The audio tapes date back to the days before the dissolution of the Delhi Assembly in 2014 and allegedly have Kejriwal asking Garg to convince six Congress MLAs to quit the party and form a new party so that they can lend support to AAP for a full majority.

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After the audio recording surfaced in the public domain, the AAP leadership suspended Garg – the former MLA from Rohini – from the party in March last year pending an inquiry against him for indulging in “anti-party activity”.

Two of AAP’s four MPs – Dharamvir Gandhi from Patiala and Harinder Singh Khalsa from Fatehgarh Sahib – were suspended earlier this year for indulging in “anti party activities”.

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They had accused the party of following “use and throw” policy. They alleged that AAP has a habit of “dumping old faces every few months and then shopping for new ones”.

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In yet another major jolt to the party, 376 members of its Maharashtra unit claimed to have resigned from the party. The list includes several office-bearers as well who now say the party has “deviated from its core values”.

Aam Aadmi Party founder member and former MP Ilyas Azmi quit the party in May this year citing “lack of inner democracy” in the organisation and Kejriwal’s alleged “autocratic style of functioning”, almost a week after he was dropped from party’s top decision-making bodies.

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Azmi accused Kejriwal of indulging in “caste and community-based politics” and of “ignoring Muslims and people from backward classes”.

After being chided for his comments on Jain religious leader Tarun Sagar, music director and AAP’s star campaigner Vishal Dadlani “quit all active political work/affiliation” on August 27 evening.

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AAP MLAs who were recently embroiled in controversies

1. Two AAP lawmakers, Sanjeev Jha (from Burari) and Akhilesh Tripathi (from Model town), booked for rioting and injuring police personnel in February last year. Clashes between the police and nearly 500 alleged supporters of the ruling AAP in North Delh's Burari area on February 20 night left nine policemen injured.

Six volunteers of the party were arrested in connection with the incident.

2. An FIR was filed against Sadar Bazar MLA Som Dutt Sharma for assaulting a person.

3. Mangolpuri MLA Rakhi Birlan was booked for allegedly preventing sanitation workers from doing their job in Rohini and assaulting them in October 2014.

4. Already engaged in a row over his academic qualification, AAP MLA from Delhi Cantt Surinder Singh ‘Commando’ landed in another controversy in August 2015 when an FIR was registered against him at the Tughlaq Road police station for allegedly making castiest remarks against a New Delhi Municipal Council sanitary inspector belonging to schedule caste and obstructing him and other NDMC employees from performing government duty.

He was arrested and released on bail from court.

5. The Income Tax (IT) Department is said to have unearthed unaccounted money worth Rs 138 crore in raids conducted at the premises of AAP MLA from Chhatarpur Kartar Singh Tanwar. The department carried out a search-and-seizure operation at the MLA’s house and his aides in July and claims to have recovered papers showing these transactions.

6. Cases of attempt to murder, domestic violence and cheating were registered against Malviya Nagar MLA and former Delhi Law Minister Somnath Bharti on the complaint of his wife Lipika Mitra in October last.

7. Delhi Police February 2015 announced that the 8000 bottles of liquor, which were recovered from a warehouse in west Delhi the same month, had been smuggled into Delhi allegedly by AAP candidate Naresh Balyan to lure voters in the assembly elections.

He was quizzed and cases were filed under relevant sections of the IPC.

8. Vikaspuri MLA Mahendra Yadav was arrested in January this year on charges of rioting and assaulting a public servant during a protest seeking action against an alleged sexual offender in West Delhi Nihal Vihar area.

According to the police, Yadav led a violent protest in Nihal Vihar area on January 29 evening, a day after a three-year-old girl was allegedly raped by a 45-year-old relative. The police also alleged that the mob attempted to set a vehicle on fire.

9. Kondli MLA Manoj Kumar was booked for allegedly outraging a woman’s modesty, land grabbing and causing hurt. A total of four FIRs registered against him at three east Delhi police stations. He was arrested after 14 months of the incident in July 2015.

10. AAP MLA from Okhla Amanatullah Khan was arrested recently for allegedly threatening a woman after she visited his residence to raise the issue of power cuts. He was later granted bail by a Delhi court.

11. Punjab Police on July 24 night arrested Mehrauli constituency AAP MLA Naresh Yadav, who has been booked in connection with the alleged Malerkotla sacrilege incident on June 24, from his house in Delhi.

Yadav has been booked under relevant sections of the IPC after one of the accused, Vijay Kumar, arrested in connection with the incident, claimed he had done it at the behest of the AAP MLA.