Kejri trains guns on BJP, says it has no issue except Shaheen Bagh
NEW DELHI: Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Monday trained his guns on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), saying that the party’s entire campaign in Delhi revolves around the ongoing anti-citizensip (Amendment) Act protests in the Shaheen Bagh neighbourhood and expressed dismay over the saffron party’s attempts to portray him as “anti-hindu”.
In a town hall address with Hindi news channel News18 India, Kejriwal identified himself as a “devout Hindu” when the anchor asked him a question on his religiosity.
“I don’t know why they (BJP) have been trying to portray me anti-hindu. I am a devout Hindu and a follower of Hanuman,” the Delhi CM said.
Asked if he could recite the Hanuman Chalisa, Kejriwal sang a hymn. In another town hall address with Hindi news channel News-24, Kejriwal said,
“The BJP has designed its entire election campaign around the Shaheen Bagh protest. It is because they have no real issue for the Delhi elections… Hence, they are calling me a terrorist… It was the duty of the BJP leadership to talk to the protesters and get the road blockade cleared.”
When asked why he did not visit the Shaheen Bagh protest siite or the Jamia Millia and Jawaharlal Nehru University campuses after students were attacked, Kejrwal threw the ball on the other side of the court saying, “Law and order in Delhi comes under the Union government and it was the primary responsibility of Union home minister Amit Shah. I could not have done anything by physically going there.”
When asked by the anchor, Kejriwal sang hymns from the Hanuman Chalisa once again.
Several streets of Delhi turned into a sea of white-and-blue as hundreds of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) supporters joined Kejriwal in road shows organised in Dwarka, Palam, Kondli, Trilokpuri and Patparganj, where he stood in support of deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia.
While the chief minister did not speak at the road shows, his party supporters continued their door-to-door campaign taking on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) over their West Delhi MP Parvesh Verma’s “terrrorist” remark targeting Kejriwal.
In his road shows, Kejriwal waved at people from the back of an open-roof vehicle, standing next to the party’s candidates from the respective constituencies – Vinay Mishra (Dwarka), Bhavna Gaur (Palam), Kuldeep Kumar (Kondli), Rohit Kumar Mehraulia (Trilokpuri) and Sisodia (Patparganj). Except Gaur and Sisodia, all other are fresh names in the party’s list of candidates for the 2020 assembly polls.