NEW DELHI, Oct 16: AAP national convenor Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday launched the party’s “Jan Sampark” campaign ahead of the Delhi Assembly elections and urged the people to re-elect him as the chief minister.
Kejriwal said if he becomes the chief minister, he would ensure that no work of the people of Delhi gets stalled. He also alleged that the BJP, during his five months imprisonment, tried to impede various schemes of the AAP government.
“I am confident that the people will form an AAP government again to continue all the work and facilities in Delhi. With the support of your vote, I will once again be the chief minister to do all your work like before,” Kejriwal said at the campaign launch event.
Kejriwal resigned as Delhi chief minister on September 17, days after getting bail in a corruption case. He said that he would return as the chief minister only after getting a “certificate of honesty” from the people in the Assembly polls due early next year.
As part of the “Jan Sampark” campaign that will continue till October 29, Aam Aadmi Party workers will reach out to Delhiites with a letter from Kejriwal telling people the “truth” behind his arrest and that of other party leaders in corruption cases.
“The people of Delhi have many questions regarding my arrest, and to address those questions, I have written a letter. Our party workers will go door to door with this letter till October 29 so that the people can get answers to their questions,” he said.
In the letter, Kejriwal alleged that he, along with other party leaders, were arrested by the BJP to disrupt AAP’s work in Delhi.
“They arrested me and kept me in jail for five months. They did it to stop the facilities I am providing to the people of Delhi,” Kejriwal said at the event.
The letter accused the BJP-led central government of putting him behind bars to slow down the AAP’s expansion in the country in the wake of its victory in Punjab Assembly polls.
“They want to stop the work I am doing in Delhi because the people of 22 BJP-ruled states are questioning why such progress is not happening in their states,” Kejriwal said.
The AAP supremo claimed that other leaders of the party went to jail because of the contribution they had made to Delhi’s development.
“We all went to jail for you. If I did not work for the people of Delhi, the BJP people would not have sent me to jail. If Manish Sisodia did not build good schools to educate children, he would not have to go to jail,” Kejriwal said.
“If Sayendra Jain had not maintained mohalla clinics and improved government hospitals in Delhi, he would not have gone to jail,” he added.
The letter also alleged that if the BJP comes to power in Delhi, then all the work and the free facilities like electricity and water will be stopped.
AAP leaders, including Manish Sisodia, Delhi Chief Minister Atishi, ministers Gopal Rai, Saurabh Bharadwaj, Kailash Gahlot, and Imran Hussain, and other party MLAs, were also present at the campaign launch.
Meanwhile, BJP leader Vijender Gupta dismissed the AAP allegations and said, Kejriwal was spreading fear among the people of Delhi to win the assembly polls.
“Kejriwal cheated the people of Delhi… He knows it’s election time and the people will hold him accountable for his deeds and the AAP government is going to be ousted. Kejriwal has once again started scaring the people of Delhi,” Gupta, the Leader of the Opposition in the Delhi Assembly, said.
Gupta said the AAP leaders talking about the BJP withdrawing the free electricity and water schemes after coming to power only proves that the ruling party has accepted defeat.
“In their speeches, they are saying that the BJP Government will take away everything that was for free. This fear shows that they have already realised their defeat,” Gupta said.
The BJP leader said the people of Delhi are wise and will not fall for the “tricks” of the AAP. He said the party will be wiped out in Delhi. (PTI)