NEW DELHI: The AAP on Saturday gave a call to "boycott" the BJP calling it a party of "goons and uneducated", responding apparently to the felicitation of eight men who vandalised property around the Delhi CM's residence by the BJP.
Delhi unit chief Adesh Gupta had on Thursday felicitated the eight BYJM members who had been arrested for vandalising the space outside Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's residence during a protest on March 30.
While newly elected Rajya Sabha MP Raghav Chadha and AAP spokesperson Saurabh Bharadwaj held back-to-back press conferences separately to slam the BJP over the issue, Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia led the charge holding a third press conference.
Taking to twitter later, Kejriwal joined his party colleagues in their attack and said the saffron party doesn't open "good schools" because it needs "goons" to advance its politics.
"If someone commits hooliganism in America, he goes to jail. In India, he goes to that party (BJP). If someone harasses a girl in Europe, he goes to jail. In India, he goes to their party," Kejriwal tweeted in Hindi.
"They will never make good schools. They need lakhs of illiterate people, unemployed people, goons, and vandals for their politics," he added.
The charge came a day after the AAP's Kalkaji MLA Atishi called the BJP a party of "hooligans and rapists" in a scathing attack.
Holding a press conference, she had also listed names of several BJP leaders, including four union ministers, alleging that they were facing serious criminal charges.
The eight Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM) activists felicitated at the party office here were recently released on bail.
"By felicitating them, the BJP has exposed itself as how it is a party of goons and vandals. It has sent out a message that such persons will be rewarded and honoured like heroes," Sisodia told reporters.
"For the BJP, it's not the freedom fighters or the soldiers who sacrificed their lives for the country are heroes, but those who attack people, who are goons," he added.
Sisodia too cited names of the BJP leaders facing serious criminal charges including rape and murder.
Unlike BJP which is a party of "goons, loafers" and those facing serious criminal charges, the AAP is the party of those who are educated, honest, and patriots, he said, and appealed to the people to boycott the saffron party.
"Boycott such a party," he said in his appeal to people, asking, "what kind of country do you want - a country where goons and loafers get protection from the Central government or do you want an honest government?" Chadha also gave a call for "public boycott" of the BJP, saying that the people of the country need to decide whether they want to see their country going on the path of progress and development with "Kejriwal school of politics", or going down with the BJP's politics of hooliganism.
At his press conference, Bharadwaj said that the BJP's politics of hooliganism has vitiated the atmosphere of the country. "BJP needs an army of people who can perpetrate riots, violence - BJP is there to protect rapists, goons, and hooligans. You have to decide who will run this country now, goons or patriots because the time is running out," Bharadwaj said.