Lok Sabha elections 2019: Arvind Kejriwal promises full statehood for Delhi within 2 years if AAP wins all 7 seats
Lok Sabha elections 2019: Earlier this week, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) had announced a door-to-door campaign to tell people how the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) had done “injustice” to them on the issue.
Stepping up the campaign for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, Delhi chief minister and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief Arvind Kejriwal on Thursday promised full statehood to Delhi in two years if the party won all seven seats.
Kejriwal also said he would get every family a house to live in the city if his party won the general elections in the city.
Speaking at two public meetings on Thursday, the chief minister also criticised the Congress for not accepting AAP’s ‘repeated offers’ for an alliance in Delhi to defeat the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). “Across India, votes against the BJP should not be divided at any cost. Even in Delhi, there should only be one candidate against the BJP. We have got tired of repeatedly telling the Congress that there should be an alliance between them and the AAP. But, the intentions of the Congress do not appear to be good,” said Kejriwal at a meeting held in east Delhi’s Gandhi Nagar. He said the Congress is trying to weaken regional parties in not just Delhi but also in Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal.
Delhi Congress president Sheila Dikshit, however, said she was never approached by Kejriwal to forge an alliance. “He has not spoken to us. He does not know what he is saying. The AAP has reached the stage of frustration,” Dikshit, a three-time chief minister of Delhi, said.
At a second gathering in north Delhi’s Azadpur, Kejriwal made a strong pitch for full statehood by promising to give Delhi the status in two months of winning all seven parliamentary seats. “Ten years from the day Delhi is given the status of full statehood, I will give every Delhiite a concrete house to live in. This time do not vote to elect the Prime Minister. Vote to get full statehood for Delhi,” he said.
The AAP has renewed its demand for full statehood after the Supreme Court on February 14 referred the issue of transfer and posting of bureaucrats to a larger bench.