On the day of INDIA bloc's mega rally in Ramlila maidan, the ruling BJP lashed out at the Opposition alliance. Union Minister Anurag Thakur said, “Thieves and cousins, everyone together pleaded in Ramlila Maidan”.
“During the Anna movement in Ramlila Maidan, Arvind Kejriwal used to say that I am fighting a war against corruption, will not come into politics, but he also came into politics and today he is in the quagmire of corruption. Earlier he used to say that maybe there is something in this chair itself, whoever sits starts doing corruption. Today he has proved his own point,” Mr. Thakur added.
Delhi BJP president Virendra Sachdeva, attacking the rally, claimed that the alliance failed to make a mark in its first show in the capital, with citizens of Delhi rejecting the rally calls of the AAP and the Congress.
“Media reports have shown that it was a disunited rally recording presence of a motley crowd of around few thousand, most of them brought from Punjab and Haryana,” he added.
Leaders of both Delhi Congress and AAP who were making tall claims on the rally for last one week in media briefings could not enthuse even their own party workers, leave alone the people of Delhi, he said.
The disunity between the AAP and the Congress was apparent as a media video showed that the Congress got removed the photo of Arvind Kejriwal put up near the podium on the dais by AAP leaders.
Taking a dig at Sunita Kejriwal, wife of Chief Minister Mr. Kejriwal, who announced six guarantees by the AAP supremo, currently under the ED custody, Mr. Thakur further said, “What kind of alliance is this where there is no discussion, no mutual understanding? They have neither a leader, nor a policy and their intentions are flawed. Today again they have declared guarantees for discussion. Do other leaders of the alliance agree with these guarantees?
While Mr. Sachdeva said that failure of Sunday’s rally had marked the beginning of the end of the AAP in Delhi.
Before the rally started, the BJP slammed the Opposition bloc saying its motive was not to ‘save democracy’, but instead was to ‘save family’ and ‘hide corruption’.
Graft charges
BJP spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi, in a press conference, cited corruption cases of a host of leaders, including those from the Congress, DMK and the RJD, to assert that all these charges date back to pre-2014 period amid the Opposition’s accusation that the Modi government was implicating them in graft probes due to its political vendetta.
Ramlila ground once hosted “India against corruption” movement under the leadership of Anna Hazare, Mr. Trivedi said, adding that it is hosting on Sunday a rally for “everybody with corruption”.
“People who trashed many leaders as thieves and crooks have joined hands with them, and it is a strange and startling sight,” he said, in an apparent reference to the coming together of the Aam Aadmi Party with other opposition parties.
People would give them a befitting reply in the polls, he said.
