NEW DELHI: Reacting to the BJP’s victory in the Friday polls for the last vacant seat of the standing committee, AAP national convener Arvind Kejriwal alleged that the saffron party had “illegally overpowered” the Municipal Corporation of Delhi and stolen the mandate.
The councillors of the ruling AAP and Congress boycotted the elections. With the final results, the BJP now has 10 members in the panel, while the ruling AAP has only eight.
The elections were full of controversies. On Thursday, Mayor Shelly Oberoi postponed them over ruckus in the House. However, the same day, L-G VK Saxena overturned the Mayor’s decision and sought a report on the postponement. The elections were then scheduled for 1 p.m. on Friday.
Addressing the Delhi Assembly, Kejriwal said that according to rules, only the Mayor can convene a meeting of the MCD House, but the lieutenant governor changed it and directed an additional commissioner of the civic body to do it.
“Is this election?” he posed and accused the BJP of resorting to “hooliganism”.
The former chief minister claimed that, as per the rule, a notice had to be sent to every councillor 72 hours before the meeting, but this was not followed.
In the election, the BJP’s Sunder Singh got 115 votes from the BJP councillors, while the AAP’s Nirmala Kumari did not receive any vote.
‘Deleting votes’
Kejriwal alleged that the BJP has been trying to delete the votes of his party supporters on a massive scale. He claimed that the saffron party was doing so as it had “realised that it was going to lose the upcoming Delhi Assembly polls due in February.”
The former Delhi chief minister also alleged that the BJP has stationed “paid employees” in the city localities to identify AAP voters and remove their names from the voters’ lists.
“They know they will lose the Delhi Assembly polls very badly. What I have learnt from the BJP leaders is that work has been started by them on a massive scale for deleting the AAP votes and ensuring bogus voting in the elections,” said Kejriwal.
“In each colony they have stationed some ‘paid employees’ who are going door to door asking the people whom do they vote. If someone says that they vote for the Aam Aadmi Party then their votes are deleted,” he claimed.
Kejriwal said the people of Delhi should be wary of those who visit their houses asking for the party they vote.
“I want to say to Delhi people that if anybody visits and asks you which party do you vote, say I vote for the BJP. Then you are safe and your vote will not be deleted,” he said. The AAP national convener also said the city’s residents should check the Election Commission website every day to ensure their votes were not deleted.
He added that the AAP MLAs also need to warn the party’s booth-level workers to keep tabs on votes added and deleted in their areas, and the whole thing will be monitored by the party.
The former Delhi chief minister also attacked the BJP over its relations with the RSS. He said “Sangh pracharaks” give their whole lives to the RSS ideology and asked what they get in return.