After seeing his political party and mother being at the receiving end of relentless attacks by the Aam Aadmi Party, Congress candidate from East Delhi Sandeep Dikshit has been using his interactions with the voters to criticise its AAP convener and former Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal for shying away from governance. Speaking to The Hindu after a hectic round of padyatra in the trans-Yamuna area, Mr. Dikshit questioned the rationale behind Mr. Kejriwal’s resignation as Chief Minister and said the move was aimed at reaping a rich electoral harvest in the Lok Sabha.
“What did Mr. Kejriwal achieve by putting in his papers? He is not a God and cannot exonerate himself from the blame of running away from governance. Just because he is having insiders in television channels he cannot be manipulating the media. On the other hand, the United Progressive Alliance government did not run away when it could not pass the Food Security Bill.”
On the personal attacks on his mother by the AAP leader, Mr. Dikshit claimed that there was not a shred of evidence against Sheila Dikshit.
“Earlier, Mr. Kejriwal used to publicly make statements against my mother and claimed that he had evidence to back up his charges.
He did not have guts to attend any of the anti-defamation cases against him. Even in the anti-defamation case against my mother, he did not bring the files to prove his claims. Even BJP leader Harsh Vardhan has met him and said that Mr. Kejriwal does not have proof to substantiate any of his charges.”
Blaming the AAP leader for being soft on communalism, Mr. Dikshit said for Mr. Kejriwal setting up of the Special Investigation Team into the anti-Sikh riots was more important than initiating a probe into the Batla House incident.
“Communalism is not on Mr. Kerjriwal’s agenda. It is not in his genetic make up. I feel there needs to be an investigation into the Batla House incident. One needs to remember that Sajjan Kumar and Jagdish Tytler were acquitted by the courts, not by the Congress,” said Mr. Dikshit, adding that he joined politics after the Gujarat riots of 2002.
Feigning ignorance about his rivals contesting from main political parties against him from the East Delhi constituency, Mr. Dikshit said he did not know AAP candidate from East Delhi Rajmohan Gandhi except that he was the grandson of the Father of the Nation.
“If Rajmohan Gandhi asks for votes for Mahatma Gandhi then even I would vote for him. If he had been a serious politician, even if he was based outside Delhi, I would have known him. Similarly, I do not know anything about BJP candidate Maheish Girri except that he has been launching medical campaigns in Delhi for the past two years.”
Though Mr. Dikshit has been refraining from attacking his rivals, he has been unsparing in his attack on Arvind Kejriwal, who pulled off a major upset against Ms. Dikshit by defeating her by over 25,000 votes from the New Delhi Assembly constituency.
The convincing defeat ended Ms. Dikshit’s career and she accepted a gubernatorial post in Kerala.
