Kejriwal to launch fast for statehood on Mar 1
NEWDELHI:CHIEF minister Arvind Kejriwal on Saturday announced in the Assembly that he would start an indefinite hunger strike from March 1 to demand full statehood for Delhi.
This will be the activistturned-politician’s first hunger strike ever since he became Delhi’s chief minister. Kejriwal, who is a diabetic, justified Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) “statehood movement” by calling it the “aar ya paar ki ladai” (final battle).
Kejriwal said he is ‘ready to face death’ to give Delhiites their ‘right of full statehood’ and put an end to their ‘continuous exploitation’ by the Bharatiya Janata Party and Congress governments. “To unite the people of Delhi and to begin our movement for full statehood, I will sit on an indefinite fast from March 1,” Kejriwal said in the House.
Kejriwal’s announcement on Saturday brought back memories of his days as an RTI and anticorruption activist. His hunger strike on March 1 will be six years after his last protest when he had gone without eating for 14-days to protest against inflated power and water bills in the National Capital. Prior to the March 2013 strike, the AAP convener had sat on a hunger strike in July 2012 against corruption where he shared the stage with anti-corruption crusader Anna Hazare.
Kejriwal, hitting out at the BJP, said he is “indebted” to the people of Delhi for AAP’S meteoric win in the 2015 assembly elections. “The people of Delhi have given us a lot. Except a few here, we had not even fought an election ever. We were nobody. We used to roam in the narrow bylanes of Delhi, running a small NGO. People of Delhi gave us a big responsibility by electing us on 67 of the 70 seats,” he said.
The party has made Delhi’s statehood issue as its main poll plank for the upcoming general elections, after the Supreme Court recently delivered a split verdict on the issue of control over services in the Delhi government versus Centre case.
Kejriwal also took a dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the Centre’s alleged interference in Delhi’s affairs. “I want to tell the PM to handle Pakistan which he has not been able to do and give Delhi Police, Delhi Development Authority and municipal corporation of Delhi to the people of Delhi,” he said.