‘Working on steps to fight pollution’
NEW DELHI: The concept of Opposition unity in India is misconceived because the people of India want a politics of hope and positivity, not a political project with the sole aim of defeating the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal said on Saturday, expanding on his party’s push to make governance delivery a core election agenda.
Speaking at the final session of the 20th edition of the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief also spoke about his government’s focus on bettering the quality of government schools and hospitals, took responsibility for an inability to stamp down on Punjab’s farm fire problem in the short time the AAP government has been in power, and accused Delhi lieutenant governor VK Saxena of blocking his government’s administrative efforts.
“People don’t want Opposition unity. They want hope. Opposition unity means all opposition parties come together to defeat the BJP. But why did you take the onus of defeating the BJP on yourself? We live in a democracy. If the BJP is to be defeated, the people will decide. You have to go to the people and say that vote for us because this is how we will change your life. You have to give the country hope, an agenda and a roadmap of how in five years, we will change their lives. The day they like that agenda, the people will defeat the BJP on their own,” he told HT’s managing editor Kunal Pradhan.
“Leave the responsibility of defeating the BJP on the people. Hence, I think the efforts of coming together to defeat the BJP don’t work,” he added. The comments come even as several Opposition parties continue to work together on creating a common platform ahead of the 2024 election, though some such efforts in the past – such as the Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party coming together in Uttar Pradesh, or the Telugu Desam Party, and then Telangana Rashtra Samithi building a so-called third front – have met with only limited success.
Kejriwal took responsibility for farm fires continuing to rage in Punjab, a state where his AAP swept to power in elections earlier this year, and said that he needed another year to ensure that one of the main sources of pollution choking the Capital can be extinguished. This year, as the air quality in the city dipped into severe levels, farm fires contributed up to a third of the pollution suffocating Delhi.
“At the outset, I take responsibility for the stubble burning. Our government and party take responsibility for this, not the farmers in Punjab. Stubble burning is happening in Punjab, and it shouldn’t happen. This is a fact. Because of this, smoke is shrouding Delhi,” he said.
He said farmers don’t want to burn stubble, but the decade-old problem couldn’t be solved in a few months. He said farmers set fire to their fields out of a lack of feasible options. “I am asking for one year. Next year, this should be substantially less. This year too we tried some solutions but they failed. Please give us some time,” he added. “There are 4-5 solutions but I don’t want to talk about them because we don’t know which ones will work. For example, 2-3 months ago, we were discussing solutions that didn’t end up working. Perhaps the time was also very little,” he said. But the CM was quick to point out that pollution was not a Delhi-centric problem and read out a list of north Indian cities where the quality of air was as noxious or even worse than the Capital. “In none of these regions, the AAP is in power. We are not responsible for it. We have to understand that pollution is a north Indian problem, and therefore, the central government has to sit down and talk with all governments to find a solution. But they don’t do this,” he said.
‘Rising in Gujarat’
It is this brand of politics that Kejriwal said will help the party in its maiden venture in Gujarat, which votes in the assembly election next month and the municipal polls in Delhi on December 4.
“Why will the people vote for the BJP? Elections are fought on hope. Do the people have any hope in the BJP? No. They don’t have anything to show for their 15 years in power,” he said, adding that if the AAP wins the municipal elections in Delhi, it will learn from national and international examples to clean up the Capital. “It’s not rocket science but the motivation needs to be pure,” he said.
In Gujarat, where the AAP is challenging the incumbent BJP and the Congress, Kejriwal said the party was making major inroads. “BJP is not able to say what they did in power. When we went to Gujarat in April, the scale of anti-incumbency showed us that the people were very angry. The only thing favouring the BJP and Congress is that there is a committed vote for them. But the AAP has brought in hope and our brand of politics is getting a lot of support. Both their vote shares are falling and we are rising. Twenty days are left, anything can change,” he said.
He admitted that the Punjab government faced law-and-order challenges in its first few months but added that things were now under control. Describing his party’s ideological stance, he said the AAP stood for staunch honesty, patriotism and humanity. He blamed the L-G for blocking Delhi government’s schemes such as providing free yoga lessons to Delhi residents, asking people to turn off their engines at red lights and now-scrapped excise policy. “The people have chosen Kejriwal’s government but BJP wants to run it. This is against democracy and fundamentals of the Constitution.”