Criticising Bharatiya Janata Party prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, Aam Aadmi Party national convener Arvind Kejriwal has said that “Modi wave” is a “political conspiracy” being propagated for over a year now in collusion with some “corrupt” media houses. He added that there was a need to bring the truth behind the “myth” of the Gujarat development model as well.
Addressing a well-attended public meeting at Bhim Nagar Ramlila Maidan in Old Gurgaon here, Mr. Kejriwal, in his inimitable style, said the Congress had robbed the people for the past 10 years and was now on its way out. He added but all this talk of Mr. Modi coming to power was a “political conspiracy” being spread by some corrupt media houses.
“Mr. Modi claims that he has brought about Ram Rajya in Gujarat. But I was surprised to see the situation in his State during my recent visit there. Our teams went to 26 districts and found that corruption was rampant and the condition of farmers was pathetic. There are fixed rates for government jobs, transfers and postings,” said Mr. Kejriwal, adding that there was “transparency only in corruption” in Gujarat.
Taking to task both the Congress and the BJP for their alleged relations with corporate houses, Mr. Kejriwal said that the Adani empire had grown from Rs.3,000 crore to Rs.47,000 crore in one decade of Mr. Modi’s rule even as more than 60,000 small sector industries had shut down.
“Whether the BJP is in power or the Congress, the country is run by Mukesh Ambani. He keeps [Congress vice-president] Rahul Gandhi in one pocket and Mr. Modi in another. These elections are a do-or-die battle against corrupt politicians, corporates and media houses.” He, however, adding that not all media houses were corrupt.
The meeting was held at the culmination of Mr. Kejriwal’s two-day road show in Faridabad and Gurgaon Parliamentary constituencies.
Senior AAP leader and Gurgaon candidate Yogendra Yadav took a dig at his political opponent — BJP’s Rao Inderjit Singh — saying that his family had been ruling South Haryana for the past several decades, but the region was always discriminated against. He further said that Mr. Singh had joined the same party he had been criticising all these years and the electorate must ask him the reason for this change of heart.
Making an emotional appeal to the electorate to provide him an opportunity to give back what he owed to his motherland, Dr. Yadav said elections were held every year, but the opportunity to bring about a change did not come across every time.
