From the New Delhi constituency of the national capital, which had sent stalwarts like late PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee and former deputy PM Lal Krishna Advani, the BJP has fielded Bansuri Swaraj, daughter of late union minister minister Sushma Swaraj to take on AAP MLA Somnath Bharti. In an interview, Ujwal Jalali discusses the constituency, vision and opponents with the 40-year-old debutant politician.
Excerpts:
This is your first election from a seat which is seen as a VVIP constituency. What is your pitch, and how do you plan to score victory here, given the fact that both AAP and Congress have stitched an alliance?
Very humbly I would like to state that there is nothing like high-profile or low-profile seat. All seats are equal and every voter is important. This ticket belongs to each & every karyakarta of the BJP. With Sangathan’s staunch support and ‘dev tulya karyakartas’ working day and night in the constituency, we will score a thumping victory over the unholy alliance of Cong-AAP.
Your party has always slammed the Opposition, especially Congress over nepotism and dynasty politics charges. Now you too are being targeted by the Opposition for the same. How do you respond?
Just because I am the daughter of Sushma Swaraj, politics is not barred for me. There is no post reserved for me because of my name. For the last five years, I have been executing party’s work in various capacities, including as a lawyer before various High Courts and Supreme Court. My position in politics will always be based on my work and effort. We talk about nepotism because in the opposition parties, the top position is always reserved for a family member. Merit or public acceptability has no role to play in deciding their de facto leader. The opposition parties have become similar to jagirs or fiefdom. BJP does not belong to any one family. In BJP, the merit of the candidate and his/her acceptability with the voters are the key factors.
How do you analyse your opponent Somnath Bharti from AAP?
In this election, the focus is only going to be on Modi ki Guarantee. Our Hon’ble Prime Minister, in the last 10 years, has fulfilled all the promises made in the election manifesto. We are going to focus on the promise of Shri Narendra Modi ji to take Bharat to new levels of progress and to achieve the vision of Vikisit Bharat.
What was the idea behind fielding you from the New Delhi seat, replacing MoS MEA Meenakshi Lekhi? Rather not just Lekhi, six of the seven MPs have been dropped by your party. Is anti-incumbency the reason?
In BJP, a ticket is a responsibility to serve the people of Bharat to the best of our ability. This time the party has decided to confer the responsibility upon me and I will discharge this responsibility to the best of my ability. As I said earlier, the seat or this ticket does not belong to me alone. It belongs to all the Karyakartas. I intend to serve the people diligently and honestly till such time this responsibility has been cast upon me.
Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal was recently arrested by ED in excise policy case. The INDIA bloc is training guns on your party, accusing the top leadership of “vendetta politics”. How do you respond to that charge?
Arvind Kejriwal has himself to be blamed for this situation. Today, the Aam Aadmi Party is involved in numerous corruption scams. Every department in the Kejriwal government is tainted with corruption. In these circumstances, when the investigating agency, in proper discharge of their duty, summons Kejriwal ji for questioning, he refuses to honour them. Mr. Kejriwal evaded the summons 9 times and that in itself is an offence. When Mr. Kejriwal refused to co-operate with the investigation, despite several attempts, there is no option available for the ED but to arrest him and seek custodial interrogation.