Parties have come together to ‘destroy’ AAP: Arvind Kejriwal

New Delhi: Daring Prime Minister Narendra Modi to compare the work done by his government to the BJP-ruled states, Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Tuesday alleged that political parties, including the Congress, BJP, SP and NCP have come together to “destroy” the AAP. It is for the first time Mr Kejriwal attacked political parties other than the BJP and Congress as the AAP seeks to expand to other states.

Participating in a discussion on the motion of thanks to the L-G’s address in Delhi Assembly, Mr Kejriwal also attacked the BJP-led civic bodies and challenged them to list even a single work they have done in the last 10 years. The motion of thanks, moved by tourism minister Kapil Mishra on Monday, was passed with voice votes.

“We are new to politics, but with our two-year experience, we can say that they all (political parties) are hand in glove... The SP, BSP, Sharad Pawar (who heads NCP), Congress and the BJP were like a family. They are pained to see how we (AAP) have come to power. They want to destroy us. In the last three years, not a single village head of the Congress has been arrested in a corruption, even though our 20 MLAs have been arrested so far,” Mr Kejriwal said.

He asked how much development works have been done by BJP-ruled states Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, and dared their chief ministers to compare their performance to that of the AAP government.

Mr Kejriwal said that any government can praise its own work and lieutenant-governor Anil Baijal also praised the Delhi government’s work during his speech. “The real praise is when a person walking on the streets praises you. Power and water bills in Delhi have significantly come down. Free medicines, mohalla clinics are in Delhi. Real certificate is when common man praises.

“The BJP has been in power in Madhya Pradesh for 10-12 years. I challenge its CM to list at least five works he has done in his state. I also challenge Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan governments to show five works. I don’t blame you (BJP CMs), even (PM Narendra) Modiji doesn’t know what he has done,” he said.

He alleged that the PM has “unleashed” the I-T department on the AAP and the department is “harassing” donors of his party. “I have never seen such politicisation of the Income-Tax department. It has been threatening donors not to donate money for the AAP,” he said.

He said that the biggest achievement of his government has been that the power tariff has not increased in the last two years. Slamming his critics, he said that the governance should be learnt from his government which has built 8,000 classrooms. Taking a jibe on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the CM said that the Delhi CM doesn’t roam the world but the teachers for training.

“They used to tell us we do not know governance, they should learn from us,” Mr Kejriwal said. We have built eight thousand classrooms. Other states including Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh or the MCDs haven’t constructed a single school,” he said. “We have a Prime Minister who has toured around the world but the demonetisation has been ridiculed.”

Our mohalla clinics project has been praised by Kofi Annan. We have made the odd even scheme successful. We have built 106 mohalla clinics, which the Chattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh governments would not have been able to build in these many years. We have constructed five flyovers in just one-and-a-half years. BJP ruled corporation is constructing a flyover on Rani Jhansi road, the progress on which has not even reached half,” he said.

Replying to a discussion on the Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal’s address to the House on Monday, the CM said that the Leader of Opposition in Delhi Assembly Vijender Gupta could only find faults in the speech. BJP’s President Amit Shah had slammed us saying that this was just a rhetoric we had adopted before the election. “Others can term our promises as a rhetoric, but for us it is no less than holy books such as Geeta and Bible. This is the true development as people are talking about it. Ask people what the Corporation has done in ten years in retrospect to the works of the Delhi Government in the last two years,” he said.