Kejriwal makes Rajasthan pitch: ‘Vote out Raje, Gehlot party, choose honest AAP’
The Indian Express | 1 day ago | 14-03-2023 | 11:45 am
The Indian Express
1 day ago | 14-03-2023 | 11:45 am
Throwing his hat in the ring ahead of Rajasthan’s Assembly elections, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Monday led a roadshow in Jaipur asking that the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) be given a chance in the state instead of “Vasundhara Raje Ashok Gehlot party” and offered the people of the state the development models of Delhi and Punjab. Along with Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann and other party leaders, Kejriwal led a “Tiranga Yatra” from Sanganeri Gate to Ajmeri Gate in Jaipur’s old city.Painting the Congress and the BJP with the same brush, the Delhi CM said from atop a campaign vehicle, “I have heard that (former CM) Vasundhara Raje and (Chief Minister) Ashok Gehlot get along very well, there is immense friendship. Even if a little harm comes to Gehlot, Raje puts forward the entire BJP for him. There was talk of Raje being removed and Ashok Gehlot put the entire Congress in her defence. So, these are not different parties. It is one and the same party — Vasundhara Raje Ashok Gehlot party.”“Elect an honest party this time. I, or Bhagwant Mann, don’t know how to do politics. If you want to do politics or corruption, vote for them. But if you want schools, hospitals, roads, water or electricity, come to me,” he said, adding that by going by the three-decade tradition of the state’s electorate voting out the incumbent government “it is the BJP’s number (this time)”.“They (BJP) will come and say ‘double engine double engine’. It is their code word. It means double the corruption,” Kejriwal said.Around him, his campaign truck was surrounded by a sea of the Tricolour and “Mera Rang De Basanti Chola” played in the background. Both Kejriwal and Mann began their addresses by saying “Bharat Mata ki Jai”, with Mann introducing Kejriwal as a “revolutionary CM”.Talking to journalists separately, Kejriwal said the party would contest all 200 Assembly seats in the state in elections later this year.In the 2018 Assembly polls, the AAP contested 142 seats and forfeited its deposit in all these constituencies. Between them, the party’s 142 candidates received a mere 1.36 lakh votes or 0.38 per cent of all the votes polled.The AAP’s Rajasthan election in-charge and Dwarka MLA, Vinay Mishra, told The Indian Express, “The 2018 elections and the present elections are quite different. The party was perhaps not very serious back then and only local resources were employed. This time, our national convener Arvind Kejriwal himself is taking an interest and visiting the state. We have two CMs and moreover, we now have a model to show to the people here. Delhi schemes are being copied by Rajasthan, so we are telling the people that you can imagine what will happen when the original Kejriwal comes here.”Mishra said the impact of good governance in Punjab was visible in Rajasthan districts bordering the state such as Ganganagar and Bikaner. According to him, there are 23 seats in the region that the AAP is well placed to win. However, the party would focus on contesting all 200 seats, he said.As for the organisation, Mishra said the state unit would be declared within a week. It will be followed by the establishment of the AAP’s Vidhan Sabha, block and circle units — a circle consists of five villages — according to the MLA. Almost 4.15 lakh people took the party’s membership during a drive between January 29 and February 15, Mishra said, adding that by the end of May, the AAP’s state organisation would be “ready” and Kejriwal would visit the state around then.In his address, Kejriwal said, “Since independence, the Congress has ruled Rajasthan for 48 years and the BJP for 18 years. Now, they can’t say that they weren’t given a chance. Forty-eight years is a lot, and 18 is a lot. But you can see what the situation of Rajasthan is — poverty, farmers and labourers are dying by suicide, farmers aren’t getting the price for their crops, there is unemployment, there is inflation, papers leaks are happening, widows of martyrs are being dishonoured.”He said, “BJP and Congress are fighting. What is the fight for? For power. They aren’t fighting for you. They are fighting for the CM’s chair.”Mentioning the tradition of Rajasthan alternating between the Congress and the BJP every five years, Kejriwal said, “From 1993 till today, one time BJP and one time Congress. You gave turns to them alternately, and they took turns to loot. When there is a BJP government, the Congress says that they (BJP) indulged in scams. So, the people think that let’s give them (Congress) a chance, they’ll send them to jail.”The Delhi CM said this also happens when the Congress is in power. “But no one goes to jail. The BJP hasn’t sent a single Congress person to jail. Congress hasn’t sent a single BJP person to jail. Both have a good setting between themselves. But we don’t have a setting with them. Our setting is with you, the public,” he said, adding, “Like they are brother–sister, you and us, we are brother-sister.”He said that earlier the Congress and the BJP alternated in power in Delhi too. “But the people of Delhi swept both away and elected an AAP government. The Congress got zero seats and BJP got three seats (in the 2015 elections). This was the way in Punjab too. There was a BJP-Akali Dal alliance on one side and the Congress on the other. There was a setting between the two. Five years for each, turn by turn. When the AAP came, it cleaned both of them away and the AAP got 92 seats out of 117.”Kejriwal said, “So there was a revolution in Punjab and Delhi. And you see the effect. Wonderful schools and hospitals are being constructed in Delhi. Mohalla clinics, children of poor families started receiving good education; why did they send Manish Sisodia to jail? Because he is educating children of the poor. The BJP couldn’t bear this, one person came in 75 years of independence and started improving government schools and they couldn’t bear it and sent him to jail.”
