In his third election rally in four days, Prime Minister Narendra Modi chided the Aam Aadmi Party on Tuesday over allegations that it received “dubious” donations, and said it was strange that AAP leaders who used to keep details of Swiss bank accounts of various persons in their pockets had no idea about their own party’s donors.
“The same people who would once go around with details of Swiss bank account numbers in their pockets don’t even know whose money is coming into their accounts,” he said.
AAP convener Arvind Kejriwal, in the meantime, wrote to the Chief Justice of India seeking a Supreme Court-monitored investigation into the funding of his party and also the BJP and the Congress.
The Prime Minister said this had exposed the AAP’s claims of being honest, and wondered if it could run Delhi. “Can Delhi be run through dishonesty and lies? We have taken the test of fire to be where we are,” he said.
Mr. Modi, visibly charged in his address at Rohini in North West Delhi, took a shot at Congress president Sonia Gandhi and vice-president Rahul Gandhi, calling them “Maa-Beta.” “While the old Congress has ruined the city during its 15-year rule, the temporary party [AAP], which is new and small, destroyed it for one year,” he said to laughter and applause. It was now the BJP’s responsibility to repair the damage, he added.
Appealing to voters to elect a stable government, he promised to transform Delhi from a “generator capital” to a “power-generation capital,” saying his government would come out with a policy on solar energy.
Earlier in the day, the BJP released its “Vision Document” for the city, instead of an election manifesto, and laid down its road map just three days ahead of the polls. The party’s chief ministerial candidate, Kiran Bedi, elaborated on the details on the party’s “vision to make the national capital a world-class city with major focus on development and women’s security, besides promising transparency in governance.”
However, the document failed to mention the party’s stance on full statehood for Delhi, a consistent feature of all its manifestos since 1993.
The document courted controversy for using the term “immigrants” for the people from the Northeast. While the Congress demanded an apology, the BJP dubbed it a ‘typo.’
