Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday commented on the allegation of him quitting the Delhi CM's chair because he wanted to be the Prime Minister of India, he said that the rumour was BJP's propaganda.
Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday commented on the allegation of him quitting the Delhi CM's chair because he wanted to be the Prime Minister of India, he said that the rumour was BJP's propaganda.
Kejriwal, in an interview with Zee Media, further said, "If I wanted to be PM, I could have fought from a safe seat. I would not have gone to Varanasi. The allegations were baseless." The AAP chief stated that they had left the government in Delhi after 49 days in office on 14 February, 2014 because it was difficult for them to govern. He said that the party had thought that there would be an election soon where they were expected to attain a majority but none of them knew that the polls would not be held for a year.
However, Kejriwal accepted that the party should have sought public's opinion before leaving the seat, he said, "We should have asked the people before quitting. Kejriwal revealed that he was never keen to fight the 2014 General Elections but was forced to do so because his party wanted him to."
Explaining further on why he left the Delhi seat, the AAP chief said, "I personally did not want to fight the Lok Sabha polls. I wanted to concentrate on Delhi. We wanted to make Delhi a model state. But the party was not agreeable to this. They wanted to fight all the Lok Sabha seats. I feel that it was one of our biggest mistakes. We did not have manpower and other infrastructure to fight the polls.”
On being enquired about the allegations of four cheques of Rs 50 lakhs each that his party had received from fictitious companies, Kejriwal stated that neither he nor his party were involved in any kind of wrongdoing and that it was not easy to get to the source behind the party's funding.
He said, “I want to say that muck is being thrown at us. This is not right politics. I have been called a Naxal, anarchists and what not. On being said that the funding row was more of an ethical issue, Kejriwal said in a defiant tone, “If I have done any wrong then the government can arrest me. Why aren’t they arresting me. It is the work of income tax and ED department to check illegal money transactions,” he said, adding, “We have taken the money by cheque. We cannot do more than that. We cannot check every address or how the person has earned the money.”
Expressing his views on the BJP's CM candidate for Delhi polls this year, Kiran Bedi, the AAP chief said, "I have worked with Kiran Bedi for three years and now she is levelling allegations against me. I feel sad. I dare her to look me in the eye and say if I have done anything wrong.”
Kejriwal also commented on the media presentation and said that the trial cannot be held by the media and that the media had ignored AAP after the Lok Sabha elections. He also commented on BJP and said that the reason they framed the AAP was because they feared that they would lose the Delhi elections.
Clearing the accusations of him taking several U-turns, Kejriwal stated, "I never said that I will not take a house as CM but had said that I will not take a big house. I had said that I did not need security, but I was given forcefully." On the chaos that had ensued during Janata Darbar AAP chief said that the crowd had become unmanageable and that is why no more darbars were held. As for travelling business class, he said that he had never said that he would not travel business class. Arvind Kejriwal also cleared his stance on not attacking the Congress, Sonia Gandhi and several others this time, he said that he had incessantly been attacking Congress and he had also exposed Robert Vadra.
The AAP chief said that if he is voted in power this time, he will ensure that all the promises he has made to the people get fulfilled. “The government has a lot of money. I am not taking their money home. The people's money will be spent on them only,” and added, “My budget today is Rs 40,000 crore. Some work needs to be done today. Some will take time. People have told us that they will give us land to open 20 colleges that AAP has promised. We will reduce VAT rate in Delhi and it will be lowest in the country.”
On a lighter note, Kejriwal talked about his trademark cough and muffler and said that he had tried all the treatments but he still could not get rid of it. The Assembly elections in Delhi is due on February 7, and the counting of votes will be done on February 10.
Also Read: Arun Jaitley questions AAP on dubious funding, calls them 'brilliant propagandist'
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