Citing Tihar, Arvind Kejriwal plays emotional card in Amritsar

GS Paul

Amritsar, May 16

Playing the emotional card during a roadshow here, Aam Aadmi Party national convener and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Thursday appealed to the people to vote for AAP if they don’t want him to return to Tihar Jail.

Coming to Punjab after his recent release from the jail, he paid obeisance at the Golden Temple. He was accompanied by Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann. Later, he visited the Durgiana Temple.

Amid playing of patriotic songs, Kejriwal and Mann took out the roadshow in the city, seeking support for the party’s Amritsar candidate, Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal.

He claimed that the BJP government got him arrested under a conspiracy to keep him away from the poll campaign. “With the Almighty’s blessings, I have been granted bail by the Supreme Court,” he said.

“Whether I will go to the jail or not is in your hands now… If you want to send me to the jail, vote for other party, if you want to keep me away from the jail, then vote for ‘jhaadu’ or broom (the AAP symbol),” he said. He also narrated how he was denied insulin doses needed to regulate his blood sugar in the jail.

“Ours is a small party in Delhi and Punjab only. They opposed us was because in both the states, we provided better education to poor children, free power and better health facilities. But, when I was in jail, I was not provided with the requisite medicines. My blood sugar level shot up to 350 which could have damaged my kidneys. I don’t know what they were up to and why I was arrested,” he said.

Urging people to respond to the BJP’s “tyranny”, he said the saffron party intended to establish its “autocratic” regime forever and people should safeguard the Constitution by exercising their right to vote.

Earlier, accompanied by Rajya Sabha member Sanjay Singh, he landed here at 1.30 pm. They were received by Dhaliwal, Cabinet minister Harbhajan Singh ETO and MLAs Jeevanjyot Kaur, Jasbir Singh, Ajay Gupta and Inderbir Singh Nijjar at Sri Guru Ram Dass Jee International Airport.