Delhi: Arvind Kejriwal today said the forthcoming national elections, due by May, will be a contest between his Aam Aadmi Party and the BJP, rejecting the Congress as being “nowhere in picture”. “The country has two choices. On one side, they have the BJP, which has leaders like BS Yeddyurappa and has been facing allegations of corruptions in different parts of the country. On the other side, there is AAP, which is about honest politics,” the Delhi Chief Minister said.
Mr Yeddyurappa, former Karnataka Chief Minister, recently rejoined the BJP after quitting it in 2012 over corruption charges in a mining scam.
The rise of AAP has given a new twist to the BJP’s plans, which until recently saw the 2014 polls as a direct contest with the Congress.
“People must decide – will good happen by constantly being on TV screens or through constructive and development-oriented vision on ground,” the BJP’s prime ministerial hopeful, Narendra Modi, tweeted on Sunday, in an apparent dig at the AAP.
Mr Kejriwal’s statement also came on a day when Congress Number Two Rahul Gandhi showed his readiness to be the party’s PM candidate, a decision expected to be formalised in a high-level Congress meet on January 17. Eight legislators of Mr Gandhi’s Congress prop up the minority government in Delhi formed by the AAP, which won 28 of the 70 seats in the December elections. Unlike Mr Modi, Rahul Gandhi has been generous in acknowledging the rise of AAP. “The Aam Aadmi Party works in a different way, but I must concede that AAP has done some of the work that the Congress wished to do in Delhi,” he said.
High on its stunning debut in Delhi, the AAP has now launched a massive membership drive and screening of candidates for the Lok Sabha elections. The party recently inducted several high-profile members.