Delhi BJP protests against ‘anarchist’ govt

The Delhi unit of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) staged a massive demonstration and burnt an effigy of chief minister Arvind Kejriwal outside his residence in Civil Lines over government’s alleged plan to buy surveillance equipment.

“The exposé of government’s initiative and involvement in starting work of phone tapping in the city stands out as the ultimate proof of his non-democratic mindset. Many central agencies in Delhi have been assigned the job of assessing security threat. It also shows that his approach is anarchist and his perception is that the citizens of Delhi are corrupt,” said Satish Upadhyay, Delhi BJP president.

About 1,000 protesters including BJP MPs started the march at 10.30am from Sushruta Trauma Centre and once they reached near 6, Flag Staff Road - residence of Kejriwal, police stopped them. Later, the police had to resort to water canon to stop the protesters.

BJP leader claimed that during the police action on demonstra- tors, former EDMC mayor Ram Narain Dubey suffered injuries and was taken to Tirath Ram Hospital. “He was standing near the barricade and when water canon was used, he fell on the barricade due to the pressure of water,” said a BJP leader.

Upadhyay said that state government’s launching of such a snooping exercise without any public knowledge is attack on the independence of the citizens.

“BJP will never allow such autocratic moves of Kejriwal’s government to succeed in Delhi. We demand an independent inquiry into the motives behind this snoopgate decision of Delhi government and an inquest into what could be the use of information thus collected. We fear that some foreign NGO brain might be working behind Kejriwal’s snoopgate initiative.” Upadhyay said.