Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Feb 17: the Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Saturday claimed that his Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) was the “biggest challenger” to the BJP but admitted that it might take the party at least another five years before it could challenge the ruling party on an equal footing.
Speaking on the motion of confidence in his government in the state Assembly on Saturday, Mr Kejriwal asserted that even if the BJP wins this year’s Lok Sabha polls, the AAP would “liberate” the country from the saffron party in the 2029 elections.
Mr Kejriwal had moved the confidence motion on Friday weeks after he accused the BJP of attempting to “poach” AAP MLAs with the aim of toppling his government in the national capital. The trust vote was passed by the House by a voice vote with 54 of the 62 AAP MLAs present in House of 70 members. The BJP has only eight seats in the House and can hardly dream about toppling the Kejriwal ministry enjoying almost an unassailable majority.
While addressing the Assembly, Mr Kejriwal launched a scathing attack on the BJP. “AAP is the biggest challenger to BJP, which is why it is under attack from all sides,” Mr Kejriwal said. He said he had faced several attacks in the past and now the BJP wanted to arrest him. “You may arrest me but how will you finish Kejriwal’s thoughts?” he asked.
This is the second time when the Arvind Kejriwal government sought a trust vote. “We have majority in the House but this confidence motion was needed because BJP was trying to poach AAP MLAs,” the Chief Minister said.
Moving the vote of confidence motion in the Assembly on Friday, Mr Kejriwal said two AAP MLAs told him that they were approached by members of the BJP who claimed that the Delhi chief minister would be arrested soon.
“The MLAs were told that 21 AAP legislators have agreed to leave the party and more are in touch with the BJP. They offered the MLAs ₹ 25 crore to join the BJP. The MLAs told me they did not accept. When we spoke to other MLAs, we found that they had not contacted 21, but seven. They were trying to carry out another Operation Lotus,” Mr Kejriwal said.
Mr Kejriwal said the outcome of the trust vote had firmly established to the BJP that despite all its efforts none of the AAP MLAs had deserted the party. Among the absentees, two MLAs were in jail, some are unwell and some others are out of station, he said.
The Chief Minister asserted that the BJP thought it could finish the AAP by arresting him. The Delhi Chief Minister alleged that the BJP, through control over the Services department and the bureaucracy, was obstructing the work of his government. “They claim to be Ram bhakt but they stopped medicines for the poor people in our hospitals. Did Lord Ram ask for stopping medicines for the poor people?” he said. Mr Kejriwal said he has faced attacks in the past, been slapped, got ink thrown on him and now they want to arrest him.
Ahead of the trust vote, Arvind Kejriwal also appeared before a Delhi court via video conferencing on Saturday morning over skipping five earlier summons issued by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in connection with the liquor policy case. The court will next hear the matter on March 16. The court had last week summoned Mr Kejriwal to appear before it today noting that he was “legally bound” to comply.
In its complaint, the ED has alleged that the Delhi chief minister intentionally did not want to obey the summons and kept on giving “lame excuses.” If a high-ranking public functionary like him disobeyed the law, it would “set a wrong example for the common man,” the agency said.
Mr Kejriwal’s trust vote move also came ahead of the ED’s sixth summons to appear before it on February 19. The AAP chief has skipped five summons so far and he and his party have repeatedly claimed that the summonses were illegal and the agency’s only aim was to arrest him.
Ever since the first summons was issued by the Enforcement Directorate, there has been intense speculation that the Delhi chief minister would be arrested by the agency after his questioning.
With three of its leaders — Manish Sisodia, Sanjay Singh and Satyendra Jain — behind the bars, AAP has long been anticipating the eventuality and has discussed the possible courses of action. They even want Mr Kejriwal to remain the Chief Minister and do his job from jail.
The CBI contends that liquor companies were involved in framing the excise policy, which would have brought them a 12 per cent profit. A liquor lobby it dubbed the “South Group” had paid kickbacks, part of which was routed to public servants. The Enforcement Directorate alleged laundering of the kickbacks. The BJP has alleged that the proceeds of the alleged scam were used by the AAP to fund its election campaign in Gujarat, in which it got a 12.91 per cent votes and established itself as a national party.
