Will Opposition’s Bet On Kejriwal Tilt The Balance?

Will Kejriwal emerge weaker or stronger? The...

Sackloads of cash must not replace electoral bonds

Democracies across the world frame rules, create...

Youth support in U.P. crucial for LS elections

Young voters account for almost half of...

AAP should not indulge in dirty politics: Goel

NewsAAP should not indulge in dirty politics: Goel

Minister of State for Youth Affairs and Sports and former Delhi BJP president Vijay Goel spoke to The Sunday Guardian on the massive victory of the BJP in the recently concluded municipal corporation election in Delhi. Excerpts:

Q. The BJP was in power in all the three Municipal Corporations of Delhi (MCDs) for 10 years and without denial, it was facing anti-incumbency. Despite that, the BJP has performed extremely well. What do you think has worked in your favour?

A. Yes, we were facing some sort of anti-incumbency due to the performance of several of our councillors and therefore we decided to change them. However, it is pertinent to mention that some of the councillors had done good work, but we thought of replacing them because we did not want to select a few and remove a few. Therefore, we decided to replace all of them and present a complete new team that would work on the lines and vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modiji to help build Delhi on the lines of “Swaach Bharat” and “Swasth Bharat”. I think this has worked in favour of the BJP, coupled with the developmental work that the BJP government is doing at the Centre. Moreover, this was a mandate against the AAP’s governance in the state.

Q. But the new councillors are new and might not understand governance that well. How do you plan to train them and deliver on all your promises?

A. All the new faces will be trained on how to deal with the public as well as the bureaucracy and that will be of utmost importance. We will also ask all our councillors to refrain from engaging in any sort of corruption and teach them how to fight corruption in the local bodies, thereby eradicating corruption from the local bodies as well. All the councillors would also be presented with a blueprint for their respective constituencies on how they would work on the plank of development. Apart from this, the bureaucracy will also be pulled up for non-performance and would be instructed to work efficiently.

Q. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the BJP have been at loggerheads with each other when it comes to sharing responsibilities between the MCD and the Delhi government. Will that change now with your new team? 

A. I think the AAP should learn something from this massive defeat and not indulge in dirty blame game politics. And if the AAP still refuses to learn from its mistakes, the people will punish the party once again. Even then if the AAP refuses to learn, the solution would then be to bring the MCDs directly under the Central government.

Q. The AAP has again hit out at EVMs and one its ministers has said that the victory was because of the “EVM wave” and not because of “Modi wave”. How do you react to such allegations?

A. See, you have to understand that these allegations are absolutely baseless and there is no evidence to prove such charges. If the AAP wins, the EVM is fine, if they lose, the EVMs are tampered. By making such statements, the party is making a mockery of the people’s mandate, of democracy and of themselves. They should rather humbly accept the mandate and introspect and learn something from this defeat on what went wrong with them in the past two years for them to be reduced to just 48 wards in the MCDs.

Q: Do you think the AAP has lost the moral accountability to continue in government? Does the BJP want Arvind Kejriwal to resign? 

A. Arvind Kejriwal will not resign whether I or the party want him to resign. He should understand that the people of Delhi have given a mandate against Arvind Kejriwal and the AAP. I also think that if he had been the earlier Kejriwal, he would have resigned, but now this Kejriwal has become highly political and this highly political Kejriwal will not resign. He should learn from this mistake and rectify his confrontational style of politics.

Q. You had also asked for the unification of the trifurcated MCDs in Delhi. Now that you have won again, how do you plan to unify the MCDs?

A. Yes, I had asked for the unification of the MCDs because the trifurcation has led to cash crunched corporations. Among the three corporations, only the South MCD has money, the rest of the two are cash strapped. By dividing the MCDs, they (the Congress, as the MCD was trifurcated during Sheila Dikshit’s government in Delhi) have just increased unnecessary expenses of the corporations with three Mayors, three Municipal Commissioners, etc. I think Delhi isn’t that big that it cannot be governed by one corporation. 

We will work something out. We will speak to all the stakeholders and the unification of the MCDs can happen in the near future.

- Advertisement -

Check out our other content

Check out other tags:

Most Popular Articles