Arvind Kejriwal wins confidence vote in Delhi Assembly amid walkout by BJP legislators

New Delhi, September 1

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Thursday said CBI raids on his deputy Manish Sisodia have ended up raising the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) vote share in election-bound Gujarat by 4 per cent and this share would go up further to 6 per cent if Sisodia is arrested.

Kejriwal was addressing the Delhi Assembly on the fifth day of the special session with the House passing the confidence motion he presented amid a walkout by five BJP MLAs in protest against three colleagues — Vijender Gupta, Abhay Verma and Mohan Singh Bisht — being marshalled out of the chamber over an argument with Speaker Rakhi Birla. Kejriwal in his remarks said there was a plan to hurt AAP “but it has backfired.”

“AAP’s vote share is up in Gujarat by 4 per cent since the raids on Manish Sisodia. It will go up to 6 per cent if Sisodia is arrested. And if he is arrested twice, we might form the government in Gujarat,” Kejriwal said adding that the confidence motion had been passed and it was proof that “Operation Lotus” had failed in Delhi.

Kejriwal repeated his accusations that the BJP attempted to buy off his legislators, a charge BJP MPs have trashed, demanding LG to launch a probe into the allegations. Out of 62 AAP MLAs, 59 including the Speaker were present and 58 voted for the motion.

There was no vote against the motion as BJP MLAs were absent from the House after some were marshalled out and others walked out.

Kejriwal also claimed his government was ‘kattar imaandaar’ “and consisted of educated people while ‘kattar baimaan’ governments lacked educated people.