Kejriwal woos voters in Chandni Chowk

Published : Feb 01, 2020 19:21 IST

Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on the campaign trail for the Assembly election in Delhi.

Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on the campaign trail for the Assembly election in Delhi.

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal was received by a jubilant crowd when he arrived at Chandni Chowk Vidhan Sabha constituency on January 31 in spite of the biting cold. The Assembly election in Delhi is scheduled for February 8. Kejriwal greeted the crowd with ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’ and the crowd reciprocated in unison. He started off by asking the people how they spent the past five years in Delhi, and the general sense was that he received positive replies on the five-year rule of the Aaam Aadmi Party (AAP).

He told the crowd, “I worked with the people of Delhi like an elder son in the family. It is the duty of the elder son in the family to meet the basic expenses. Paying the bills for water, electricity, health and education rest on the shoulders of the elder son in a family. I can say with confidence that I have been able to fulfil all those duties that you have entrusted me with.” The crowd responded with cheers and slogans in his favour. “I didn’t earn a single rupee in my name in these five years but earned a lot of blessings, love and affection,” he added.

He mocked the BJP for spreading the fake news that he would withdraw everything that he had offered free to the people by the end of March. He reassured the people that as long as he remained the Chief Minister nothing would be taken away from them. He reminded the people that the BJP did not dare to include free electricity as a promise in its manifesto. “They haven’t included free public transport for women either, which AAP has already done,” he said.

Kejriwal gave the crowd a list of reasons why the people should vote for him and explained to them some of the measures he planned to take over the next five years. He announced a major sanitisation plan for the streets of Delhi and a cleaning up of the Yamuna. He also announced that 11,000 more buses would be added to the transport fleet in Delhi. Highlighting his government’s focus on children’s education, Kejriwal said government schools in Delhi outshone privately run schools with a pass percentage of 96 in the matriculation and senior secondary exams. In addition, he said, more than 650 students from different public schools in Delhi had qualified for admission to the IITs and other such institutions.

Kejriwal claimed that besides the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party, parties such as the RJD, the LJP and the JD(U), to name a few, were fighting against the AAP in the Delhi election this time. “On being elected to power I didn’t differentiate between the people on the basis of who voted for me or against me, I worked for all irrespective of affiliations and preferences as I believe that a Minister is above all such considerations of favouritism,” he said.

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