With a day left for the seven seats in Delhi to go to the polls, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has ramped up its campaign, hitting out at the ruling BJP and showering Delhi with promises, including statehood. The BJP campaign, helmed by none other than Prime Minister Narendra Modi, aims to keep all the seven seats it won in 2019.
Since coming out of Tihar jail, where he was lodged for over a month in a Delhi excise policy case, the AAP supremo gave speed and purpose to his party’s campaign, which, till then, was being led by his wife Suntia Kejriwal. The party's campaign, since then, has been at break-neck speed.
On Wednesday, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal took a direct shot at the Prime Minister, when he said the latter was working on a special project of 'one nation, one leader'. He claimed that what was happening with the AAP was an experiment that would be replicated with other opposition parties.
Stating that dangerous things were happening in the country, Kejriwal said that any opposition leaders who spoke against Modi would be put in jail, citing the names of Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren, former Delhi ministers Satyendar Jain and Manish Sisodia besides himself.
He also promised full statehood for Delhi if the INDIA bloc came to power on June 4. "As soon as we form the government the first work we will do is to get the full statehood for Delhi," Kejriwal told his supporters during a road show.
The BJP, on the other hand, is planning to nail Kejriwal and the AAP with the graft allegations over the Delhi liquor policy case. During his campaign, BJP leader Rajnath Singh cited Kejriwal's arrest. "Kejriwal would claim to be the most honest person. Now, he says he has been jailed by Modi ji...should our government not take action against corruption?", Singh said in an election rally. Amit Shah also minced no words when he called Kejriwal a shameless person for sticking to the CM position despite being accused in the case.
Union Minister Anurag Thakur too hit out at AAP and its national convener Arvind Kejriwal, calling them synonymous with corruption. He claimed that their only aim was to get power and mint money. "The Congress and Arvind Kejriwal are synonymous with corruption and they have no love and faith for the people. They are working only to get power to mint the money and harass the opponents," he said.
The seven seats
In both 2014 and 2019, the BJP won all seven seats in the national capital. This is despite AAP winning the reign of the state.
The six new names in the BJP’s list are Praveen Khandelwal from Chandni Chowk, Harsh Deep Malhotra from East Delhi, Yogender Chandolia from North-West Delhi, Ramvir Singh Bhiduri from South Delhi, Kamaljeet Singh Sehrawat from West Delhi and Bansuri Swaraj, the daughter of late BJP veteran Sushma Swaraj from New Delhi.
Surprisingly, the BJP dropped six of its seven MPs in Delhi this time, with actor turned politician Manoj Tiwari, the party’s sitting MP from North-East Delhi, being the only one retained.
As for AAP, it faces the battle jointly with the Congress, with the former contesting four seats and the latter three. In Delhi, the Arvind Kejriwal-led party is contesting East Delhi, West Delhi, South Delhi and New Delhi while the Congress has put up candidates in North-East Delhi, North-West Delhi and Chandni Chowk.
The AAP candidates are Kuldeep Kumar from East Delhi, Sahiram Pehalwan from South Delhi, Mahabal Mishra from West Delhi and Somnath Bharti from New Delhi.
While the Congress’ Lok Sabha picks in the national capital include Udit Raj from North-West Delhi (reserved SC seat), Jai Prakash Agarwal from Chandni Chowk and former JNU Student’s Union President Kanhaiya Kumar from North-East Delhi.