New Delhi. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said on Wednesday that he has no intention of becoming the next Prime Minister of the country if the ‘India’ alliance wins the Lok Sabha elections. He said that his aim is to save the country and democracy from the current ‘dictatorship’. In an interview with PTI’s video service, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) national convenor Kejriwal also alleged that if the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) comes back to power, all the opposition leaders will be put in jail and it will spoil the elections. Will hijack.
Kejriwal said that the decision about the opposition ‘India’ alliance’s candidate for the post of Prime Minister will be taken after the results of the Lok Sabha elections are declared on June 4. He said that he feels that the opposition alliance ‘Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance’ (India) is slowly moving towards the figure of 300. Kejriwal said, ‘It will form the government on its own. The alliance will give a good, stable government.’
Asked whether he considered himself the prime ministerial face of the ‘India’ alliance, Kejriwal said, “I have no such intention. We (AAP) are a very small party which is contesting only 22 seats.” On the question whether he would accept Rahul Gandhi as the Prime Minister of the country, Kejriwal said, ‘No such discussion has taken place. This is a theoretical question. We will discuss this when we sit together.
Without naming the BJP, the Delhi Chief Minister said, “This Lok Sabha election is to save the country and democracy from the current dictatorship.” He expressed fear that if BJP comes back to power, it will destroy democracy. Kejriwal said, ‘Elections will not be held and even if they are held, they will be like Russia. Putin either sent the entire opposition to jail or eliminated them and then held elections and won 87 percent of the votes.
He also gave the example of Pakistan to explain his point. Kejriwal said, “In Pakistan, Imran Khan was sent to jail and his party and election symbol were taken away.” The AAP convenor said, “They (BJP) will also do the same… they will send you (leaders) to jail, they will send Mamta Banerjee to jail. No one will be spared. Everyone will be in jail and then they will keep winning elections.”
When asked about the ‘India’ alliance not having any face for the post of Prime Minister, Kejriwal said, “At the moment everyone’s concern is that they (BJP) will not leave anyone.” Kejriwal emphasized that he is hopeful that the opposition alliance will win all the seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi. He said, ‘There is such a wave of AAP and India alliance that I would not be surprised if the previous records of assembly elections, in which we (AAP) had won 67 seats (in 2015) and 62 seats (in 2020), are broken.’
The Supreme Court had granted interim bail to Kejriwal till June 1 in the money laundering case on May 10 for election campaign. He said that his arrest and jail is an emotional issue for the voters of Delhi which will harm the BJP. Kejriwal said there was “tremendous anger” among people and they felt that a “good man” had been arrested. He said, ‘We are hearing about dictatorship and people are saying that they have to vote against this dictatorship. This feeling is very strong.
Kejriwal described his release from jail as a ‘miracle of God’ and said it has filled the people with enthusiasm. He said, ‘When I go to campaign, people’s eyes become moist.’ The AAP chief said he was sent to jail by the BJP, which thought it would break his party, but the opposite happened.
Kejriwal said, ‘They (BJP) thought that after my arrest the campaign will be affected and our party will break, MLAs will break and the government will fall. But the opposite happened. Our party became more united, our leadership acted like a family and our workers were encouraged to work harder when they saw that their leader was in jail.” Kejriwal said that AAP has plans to expand to many other states, but at present it is working to save democracy.
Tags: Arvind kejriwal, Lok Sabha Election 2024, Loksabha Elections, Rahul Gandhi
FIRST PUBLISHED: May 22, 2024, 22:17 IST