New Delhi:
Amid the Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) campaign for the Delhi Election, party convener Arvind Kejriwal has shot off a letter to Mohan Bhagwat, the chief of BJP’s ideological parent RSS, and asked several questions on the BJP’s politics.
Mr Kejriwal has asked if the RSS supports the BJP’s “wrongdoings”. “BJP leaders are openly distributing money, does RSS support buying votes? The names of Dalit and Purvanchali voters are being struck off (from voter lists) on a large scale. Does RSS think this is good for democracy? Doesn’t RSS feel that the BJP is weakening democracy?” Mr Kejriwal has asked.
The letter is clearly aimed at embarrassing the BJP amid a bitter campaign for the capital contest. While AAP has alleged that the BJP is getting voters’ names struck off the list in a desperate attempt to win the election, the BJP has accused the ruling party of getting fake voters’ names added to the list to bolster its support.
The BJP responded sharply to Mr Kejriwal’s letter with a letter. State BJP President Virendra Sachdeva said, “Today, I have written a letter to Aam Aadmi Party leader and former Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal…we hope that you will abandon your wrong habits of lying and deceit and bring meaningful change within yourself.”
BJP’s Sudhanshu Trivedi said Mr Kejriwal’s letter to the RSS chief is an attempt to grab “media attention”. “Don’t write to the Sangh (RSS), learn from it. Learn the spirit of service, leave behind your political moves,” the Rajya MP said.
In an interaction with the media on Sunday, Mr Kejriwal said the BJP has neither vision nor candidates for the Delhi election. “BJP wants to win this election somehow by using dishonest means. But the people of Delhi won’t let this happen. We won’t let them win by using the tactics they are said to have used in Maharashtra and Haryana,” he said, asking Delhiites to keep checking names on voter lists.
The AAP leader alleged that the BJP had launched “Operation Lotus” in the New Delhi constituency that he represents. “In 15 days, they have put in applications to delete names of 5,000 voters and also applied for the addition of 7,500 names to the voter list. The total votes in my constituency is 1 lakh 6 thousand. What is the point of holding an election then? A game is playing out in the name of election.”
The AAP leader said a summary revision was carried out earlier and the Election Commission released a revised voter list on October 29. “If there is a 12 per cent difference as the BJP claims, was the poll body’s summary revision wrong?”
Mr Kejriwal alleged that the BJP plans to get people from outside and register them as Delhi voters.
Refuting the charges, Delhi BJP chief Virendraa Sachdeva said the number of voters in Delhi saw a huge jump between the 2014 Lok Sabha polls and the Assembly election next year. The same, he said, was observed after the 2019 general election. “Who got these new voters? There are no answers. They are trying to play the same game this time. BJP is saying those who don’t live in Delhi anymore, those who have died, why should their names be on the list?”
The BJP leader alleged that fake documents were being used to get fake voters’ names on the list.
Mr Kejriwal also warned officers against committing irregularities at the BJP’s behest. “I want to tell the officers, you will be pressured to commit wrong acts but remember, you will sign the papers and these signatures will stay. Today or tomorrow, the government will change, but the files and signatures will stay. Work as per law, you will be in trouble. The ones who are giving the orders would escape.”
The AAP leader had written to Mr Bhagwat in September too, asking asking five questions related to the BJP and its leadership. The letter raised questions on Prime Minister Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s actions and the NDA government’s alleged misuse of central agencies to target political rivals.
