NEW DELHI: Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Union Minister Vijay Goel locked horns on micro-blogging site Twitter on Saturday over the ill-effects of demonetisation, sealing drive and GST on the ‘Baniya’ (businessmen) community in Delhi.
The AAP claims that the trading community is not only reeling under the double whammy of demonetisation and sealing drive, but that also many traders have even lost their polling right as their names were deleted from the voters’ list by the Election Commission on the directions of the BJP-led Centre.
The spat began after Goel, the Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs and Statistics, tweeted that Delhiites were angry with the chief minister. “People of Delhi are angry with Arvind Kejriwal because he and his party think Baniya community is foolish. Will the community ever believe that BJP is especially deleting Baniya votes? But the reality is that two leaders from the community are Union ministers (sic),” Goel tweeted, referring to himself and his colleague Harsh Vardhan, who is also a BJP MP from Delhi.
“BJP should answer as to why they have deleted the names of four lakh voters out of the total eight lakh Baniya voters. Wrong implementation of GST has ruined the business of traders. That is why they are not going to vote for you. But, now you are deleting names from the voter list. Is this how you plan to win? (sic),” Kejriwal tweeted in response.
Goel shot back, saying Kejriwal was indulging in politics with regard to the Baniya voters in Delhi. “Such politics of caste is not good. I think I have touched a raw nerve. Baniya hates liars.”
The AAP is at loggerheads with the EC for the last two months over the alleged removal of names of voters from the communities - Muslims and Poorvanchali - that did not vote for the BJP in the past. Recently, the AAP has included the ‘Baniyas’ to this list in its attacks on the BJP.
The AAP believes that lakhs of genuine voters were removed from the voters’ list by the poll body, which it alleges is being done on the directions of the BJP in Centre.
Arvind Kejriwal plans to fight the Lok Sabha elections in all the seats in Delhi, Punjab and Haryana next year, for which the campaign has already started.