Sheila Dikshit: Kejriwal fooling people on the issue of full statehood

Sheila Dikshit

New Delhi: Plunging into the thick of election campaigning, Congress' octogenarian candidate Sheila Dikshit Monday hit out at the BJP and the AAP for failing to meet the aspirations of people and asserted that her party will win all the seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi.

Canvassing in various parts of the North East Delhi parliamentary constituency, Diskhit said AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal is "fooling" the people on the issue of full statehood for Delhi.

The former chief minister said her party will win all the seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi. Dikshit, who heads Delhi Congress is pitted against her BJP counterpart Manoj Tiwari and former convener of AAP's Delhi unit Dilip Pandey in a triangular contest on North East Delhi seat.

Kejriwal is "fooling" the people on the issue of full statehood for Delhi, she said during her public meetings in North East Delhi.

"Had Kejriwal read the Indian Constitution and understood it well, he would not have been repeatedly telling lies to the people on the full statehood issue. "Asking for full statehood for Delhi meant going against the grain of the Indian constitution, and Kejriwal seems to be totally ignorant about the country's Constitution," she said.

The ruling AAP has been attacking both the BJP and Congress over full statehood issue, which it has made its central theme of campaigning for the Lok Sabha elections. The AAP leaders including Arvind Kejriwal have charged the BJP and Congress of "betraying" the people of Delhi by going back on their promise for granting full statehood to the city.

Dikshit said full statehood for Delhi needed amendment in Constitution which the Aam Aadmi Party cannot achieve without the support of a majority in Parliament. Dikshit also questioned the AAP over its sincerity towards the issue of full statehood and charged party MPs of never raising it in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha.

The Congress led by Dikshit is banking on various work done by her as Delhi's Chief Minister for three consecutive terms from 1998 to 2013, to sail through the Lok Sabha polls. The former Delhi Chief Minister attended public meetings at Seemapuri A Block, Mother Dairy, Subzi Mandi Seelampur, Mauzpur, E Block Shastri Park, New Seelampur and Babu Nagar Chanaiwali gali 25-futa Road, in the Mustafabad Assembly segment.

She highlighted works done by Congress governments at the Centre and Delhi during in her public meetings.

"During its 15-year rule in Delhi, Congress undertook major development work as new flyovers, schools, colleges and hospitals were constructed to make the life of the people easier without crying for full Statehood," she said.

The AAP is raising the statehood issue to "divert" attention of people from its "governance failure" in Delhi in last four and half years, she said citing "poor" condition of school education, transport, sanitation and air quality. She alleged both AAP and BJP are two sides of the same coin when it comes to governance.

"A beautiful Delhi left behind by the Congress in 2013 has now been turned into a huge garbage dump as both the BJP ruling the municipal corporations and AAP government have failed to maintain cleanliness and improve the green cover in the capital.

"The hike in fairs of Delhi Metro, due to collusion between the AAP and the BJP, has made it unaffordable for the common people," she said.

She claimed Delhi government has so much power even without full statehood status of the city, that ruling it could have achieved much more in the last four and half years if it had followed in the footsteps of previous Congress regime.

She said people will vote in favour of Congress's dynamism symbolised by party President Rahul Gandhi and help the party to win all the seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi to replace the "autocratic" governance of Modi government.

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