The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Friday said that the “scared” Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) opposition leaders “do not know” what they are saying on the issue of statehood for Delhi even as AAP burnt the Delhi BJP’s 2014 poll manifesto in all 70 constituencies across the Capital.
Action shows protest
AAP volunteers, led by respective MLAs and Lok Sabha candidates, did so in protest of the “BJP’s deception and treachery on full statehood for Delhi” with a similar programme scheduled across the 272 municipal wards in Delhi on Sunday, the party statement said.
“Friday’s action has shown that the people of Delhi are no longer ready to bear the injustice being meted out to them since the last seven decades,” AAP convenor Gopal Rai said.
Aims of movement
According to the party, AAP’s “full statehood movement” is aimed at ensuring that Delhi students no longer have to “run” for seeking admissions in colleges in the Capital despite scoring high marks, educated Delhi youth are entitled for jobs and women’s safety is enhanced by making Delhi Police more accountable. It also seeks to ensure that Delhi residents, who contribute ₹1.5 lakh crore in taxes to the Centre and get “merely ₹325 crore back”, no longer have to bear this “injustice.”
“A badly baffled and confused BJP is changing its stand everyday on Delhi statehood. Its Delhi unit president Manoj Tiwari is giving lame and laughable excuses in a desperate bid to justify the indefensible u-turn of the BJP,” the AAP leader alleged.
Slams Tiwari
“Though Tiwari is not a constitutional expert, but as a member of parliament he should at least know that Delhi statehood is in the domain of Parliament and not of the courts... that is why Delhi needs seven MPs who will raise the voice of statehood and not who are afraid of speaking for the rights of Delhi,” Mr. Rai further said.
Mr. Rai added that AAP volunteers will now take the statehood movement to the next level by burning the BJP’s 2014 election manifesto in all the 272 wards of Delhi on Sunday.
