BHOPAl, Oct 10 : Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann today urged the people of Madhya Pradesh not to vote for the BJP or the Congress, alleging that they have entered into a deal to loot the public for five years each. He also appealed to people to vote for the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), assuring that his party would fulfil its guarantees, including free power supply, medical treatment and employment, among others.
Addressing a public meeting at Churhat town in Sidhi district, a pocket borough of late Congress leader and Union minister Arjun Singh and his son and former Leader of Opposition Ajay Singh, Mann highlighted the AAP’s model of governance in Delhi and Punjab. Elections to the 230-member Madhya Pradesh assembly will be held on November 17, while the counting of votes will take place on December 3.
The AAP has fielded Anendra Govind Mishra Rajan from Churhat assembly seat for the upcoming polls. In the 2018 assembly polls, Congress’ Ajay Singh lost to the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Shardendu Tiwari by a margin of more than 6,000 votes. The BJP has fielded Tiwari again from Churhat this time. But the Congress is yet to announce candidates for the assembly polls. Mann arrived in the Vindhya region of the state on a two-day visit starting Tuesday to address rallies and take part in a roadshow in Rewa. “Just give us one day of yours – the day of polling on November 17, and leave the next five years to us to fulfil guarantees. These are the guarantees of Arvind Kejriwal,” Mann said.
The Punjab CM highlighted his government’s achievements of providing 37,758 government jobs to people in less than one-and-a-half years of coming to power, 600 units of free electricity, and claimed that 90 per cent households in the state did not get electricity bills. He also talked about the opening of 670 Aam Aadmi Clinics that provide 40 types of tests and also makes 90 different medicines available to people free of cost. “Nearly 60 lakh people have taken benefit of this facility so far in the state,” he said. He warned people not to vote for the Congress as well as the BJP. “They have an agreement to loot the public for five years each,” Mann alleged.
He also promised that if the AAP comes to power in Madhya Pradesh, its government would provide Rs 1 crore within 10 days to the family members of those policemen and soldiers who laid down their lives in the line of duty, and another Rs 1 crore from the bank, where their salaries were being deposited. “Like Punjab, we will implement this in Madhya Pradesh also,” he said.
Mann is scheduled to address two more rallies on Wednesday in Sirmour and Mauganj in Rewa district. The AAP is focusing on the Vindhya region of the state as it has won the Singrauli’s mayoral post in the last local bodies elections in the state and cornered a sizable number of votes in the region. Before the announcement of the assembly poll dates, both Kejriwal and Mann have addressed meetings in the Vindhya region. Rani Agrawal won the mayor’s post in Singrauli town, which is a power hub of the country and later AAP appointed her (Rani Agrawal) as its Madhya Pradesh unit president. (PTI)