AAP leader and former Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal has said he
sees an inherent contradiction between what Kiran Bedi, BJP's
presumptive chief ministerial candidate, was known to have stood for and
the values and principles of the party she now represents.
"There
are many issues... I am surprised how she will cope up with this and
how she will explain (this) to the people and to herself," Kejriwal told
IANS in an interview conducted in his car while heading for a party
rally.
"I am surprised at her entry into the BJP because the BJP
stands for exactly the opposite of what Kiran Bedi had always been
saying she stands for," Kejriwal said.
Fighting a now-or-never
election against the BJP and the Congress, Kejriwal also asserts that
the middle class, disenchanted with him after he resigned last year
after ruling Delhi for 49 days, was returning to the AAP in large
numbers.
"Kiran Bedi talks of women's safety. But how can you have a person charged with rape in the (BJP-led) cabinet?"
Kejriwal,
46, and Bedi, 65, were close colleagues during the 2011 anti-corruption
movement of Gandhian activist Anna Hazare that shook India. The two
later had a fallout.
Bedi joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)
last week. On Tuesday, she was named its chief ministerial candidate
for the Feb 7 electoral battle in Delhi.
"She (Bedi) stands for transparency. But the BJP does not want to make its funding transparent," Kejriwal went on.
Speaking
while on his way to a campaign rally in Palam area in south Delhi where
large crowds greeted him, Kejriwal was confident of an AAP victory this
time again.
"The last two opinion polls have placed us at number one (position)," Kejriwal told IANS.
"The
middle class is coming back in large numbers (to our fold)," he
asserted. "I am being honest. I myself used to say in interviews in
August and September that the middle class was very angry with us.
"It is no more so. Now more and more people say they want to give them (AAP) one more chance."
According
to him, the AAP's support base extended among all classes including
lawyers, traders, industrialists and professionals. "Aren't they all
middle class?"
Kejriwal, like Bedi a Ramon Magsaysay award
winner, remains the AAP's best known face although the party's four MPs,
all from Punjab, are also campaigning in Delhi.
Unlike in
December 2013 when the AAP was largely unknown but stunned everyone by
winning 28 of the 70 seats, Kejriwal says "99.9 percent of the people
know us now... We are very confident of winning".
So what is the AAP's strength - and its weakness?
"Our
49 days of governance is the biggest factor in our favour," he said.
"We did what we promised, be it power and water tariff, fighting
corruption and controlling (food) prices."
The one area where Kejriwal admits the AAP has suffered a setback is diaspora support.
This, he says, is because of the greater appeal abroad of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Was his resignation after 49 days in office a mistake?
"Yes,
it was a mistake," he says, a point he also makes at all his rallies.
"It wasn't a crime. One thing we have learnt (in politics) is that you
must never resign. And we will never again resign."
Support for the AAP among Indians living abroad has suffered a setback
because of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's appeal, its leader Arvind
Kejriwal has said.
"Yes, it's true that diaspora support has been affected due to Modi's appeal," Kejriwal told IANS in an interview.
An
offshoot of an anti-corruption agitation, the AAP had attracted a
number of expatriates who volunteered for the party in the run-up to the
2013 assembly polls in which it ousted the three-term Congress
government in Delhi.
The outfit had also received huge donations from them.
In
his official trips aboard, including to the US and Australia, Modi has
had well-attended exclusive interactions with Indians abroad. He has
also announced a slew of measures, including lifelong visas for Persons
of Indian Origin.
(Gaurav Sharma can be contacted at [email protected] and and M.R. Narayan Swamy can be contacted at [email protected])
