NEW DELHI: Swaraj India President and ex-Aam Aadmi party leader Yogendra Yadav on Saturday alleged that Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal was using the national capital as a “spare tyre.” He also said that he should step down as the Delhi Chief Minister and focus on Punjab. "Delhi Chief Minister should stop using Delhi as a stepney.
He should quit and focus on Punjab. He should take charge as the chief minister of Punjab if his party comes to power in the state. If it loses, then also he should focus on the state," he said. Kejriwal was virtually declared the Chief Ministerial candidate in Punjab by AAP leader Manish Sisodia, who at a rally on Monday asked people to vote "thinking that you are voting to make Arvind Kejriwal as the chief minister (of Punjab)." Kejriwal had later made it clear that the next Punjab chief minister will be from the state.
AAP, which first captured power in Delhi in 2013 on the back of its civil society campaign against corruption, has been steadily making inroad in Punjab. It had won four Lok Sabha seats in 2014 but has since been marred by infighting. Yadav said AAP's focus was more on Punjab, Goa and Gujarat than Delhi. Yadav also said that his party will do a month-long campaign for the upcoming high-stakes municipal poll in the national capital. Yadav said party volunteers will establish contact with nearly 10 lakh households under the 'Jawab Do, Hisaab Do' campaign and attempt to understand their civic-related grievances.
The campaign will culminate into a rally at the Ramlila Maidan on February 12, he said. Yadav, who was expelled along with noted lawyer Prashant Bhushan from Aam Aadmi Party in 2015, also released a public survey done by Swaraj India on the performance of the Delhi government and the city's civic bodies. As per the survey, nearly 60 per cent of those interviewed were dissatisfied with the performance of the Arvind Kejriwal dispensation, while 36 per cent were of opinion that the Delhi government was "using LG as an excuse for its inaction", Yadav claimed.