Stepping up the party’s campaign for the Delhi Assembly elections, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president and Union home minister Amit Shah on Sunday asked party workers to go door-to-door and hold “mohalla meetings” or corner meetings to “expose” the ruling Aam Aadmi Party and tell people about Centre’s welfare schemes.
The BJP chief announced that he will launch the campaign by addressing mohalla meetings in the national Capital.
Elections to the 70 Assembly constituencies in Delhi are due in February.
“We have to fight elections by reaching out to every house and conducting small mohalla meetings. I myself am going to start mohalla meetings and as your president, will conduct 50, 100 or 150 such meetings [as required]….Delhi elections will not be fought merely by rallies, big hoardings and posters but the workers will require to contact each household to spread the message and achievements of Modi government, and expose (chief minister Arvind) Kejriwal’s ‘lies and betrayal’ and (Senior Congress leader) Rahul Gandhi’s ‘anti-national’ policies,” Shah said while addressing BJP’s grassroots workers from 13,750 polling booths, who attended a convention organised by the Delhi unit of the party.
In context of the BJP’s drubbing in the 2015 Delhi assembly polls, Shah said he was confident of the BJP’s victory since Kejriwal could “mislead” people once but not all the time.
“The media asks me what will happen in Delhi. Delhi is going to have a BJP government under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi,” Shah said.
Chief minister Arvind Kejriwal later tweeted that Shah did not say much except “abusing him”. He said Shah did not point out any shortcomings in the work done by the Delhi government.
“I heard the entire speech of home minister, Amit Shah ji. I thought he would point out the shortcomings of our work and talk about the development of Delhi. He did not say anything else except abusing me,” he said in a tweet.
“If they [BJP] have suggestions for Delhi, then they should let us know and we will implement them in the next five years,” Kejriwal said.
Training his guns at the Delhi chief minister, Shah said the ruling party has “not fulfilled its promises.
“Kejriwal had promised 20 colleges, I cannot see any even with binoculars. He had promised about constructing over 5,000 schools but they are not seen even with spectacles. He had promised to construct hospitals but at the end (of the tenure) he just presented a photo of a model of hospital building. You conspired to fail the three municipal corporations by stalling the grant of Rs 10,000 crore…You wanted to mislead Delhi people,” Shah alleged.
Shah also listed work done by the central government for the national Capital in the last five years. Accusing Kejriwal of “misleading” people, Shah sought to know whether the AAP government had completed any work in the last five years.
With the protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act going on in various parts of the country and the violence reported in Delhi, the BJP president accused Kejriwal and Congress’ Rahul Gandhi of “misleading” people on the CAA [Citizenship Amendment Act].
“Kejriwal misled people, Congress, specially Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Vadra misled people and instigated riots (in the pretext of CAA protests). I want to ask Delhi people if you want a government in Delhi which instigates riots due to its politics,” Shah alleged.
Responding to Shah’s allegations, Delhi Congress chief Subhash Chopra said, “We are against any kind of violence and we truly believe that the guilty must not be spared. However, we are against what happened in Jamia when the police entered the library and misbehaved with students. What does Mr Shah have to say about it? Why was no action taken against them?”
“Even today [Sunday], after what happened in JNU, the police just stood outside and watched. Why didn’t they enter the campus just like in Jamia when students were being harassed by goons?” Chopra added.
The Congress leader was referring to the violence against students in Jawaharlal Nehru University on Sunday evening.
BJP’s working president JP Nadda also attended the event and said that the party would register victory in assembly polls through the dedication and hard work of its workers.
The convention was attended by Union ministers Prakash Javadekar, Hardeep Puri , Harsh Vardhan , Nityanand Rai, along with Delhi BJP president Manoj Tiwari and other senior leaders from the party.
