Centre failed to deliver in Delhi: Kejriwal

AAP national convener Arvind Kejriwal on Friday hit back at Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “aapda” (crisis) remark while announcing development projects in the national capital, saying it is for the BJP internally.

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The former Delhi Chief Minister said, “The BJP is facing its own ‘aapda’— a crisis of incompetence, irrelevance and indifference.”

He highlighted three crises within the BJP – “One, BJP does not have a chief ministerial face in Delhi. Second it has no narrative, it doesn't even know what to talk about. The third is that it has no agenda for this election.”

The three-time CM for Delhi, eyeing his fourth term in the upcoming Assembly elections in the Capital next month, said: “Delhi is a half state, so people here elect two governments. Some matters fall under the state government’s jurisdiction, and some under the Centre. So in 2015, the people elected two governments — the Central Government of the BJP and the Delhi Government of the AAP.”

He claimed that the Central Government failed to deliver in Delhi, while the AAP has done work in education, healthcare, electricity, water, sewage, roads.

On PM announcing 1,645 flats for the for the residents of JJ clusters and two urban redevelopment projects, the AAP supremo said, “During the 2020 Assembly elections, the Prime Minister stated — clearly mentioned in the manifesto — that by 2022, all the people of Delhi would have permanent houses… From 2020 to 2025, today, the Prime Minister handed over keys to 1,700 houses.”

He said earlier in Kalkaji, he had handed over keys to 3,000 houses. “So, roughly, in five years, they have built 4,700 houses. Delhi has about four lakh slum clusters where 15 lakh people live. At the pace of 4,700 houses in five years, it seems the BJP has devised a 200-year programme for housing.”

He further said that if they (BJP) win the 2030 elections, they will demolish all slums in Delhi before the elections without providing a single permanent home.

Kejriwal also addressed the PM’s foundation-stone laying for two campuses of Delhi University and Veer Savarkar college. “I want to tell the PM — it took you 10 years to lay foundation stones for three colleges. In these 10 years, while you were laying foundation stones, I built 22,000 classrooms, three new universities, 11 new vocational colleges and six university campuses.”

“There is indeed one crisis in Delhi — law and order. In Delhi, gangsters openly fire bullets, but Amit Shah doesn’t hear them,” he continued.

He concluded, “I would like to request the PM to tell Amit Shah if he can spare some time from toppling governments, forming new ones and buying MLAs, he should devote a little time to fixing Delhi’s law and order situation.”