‘Protests at Shaheen Bagh are illegal and aimed at troubling lakhs of people residing in Noida and South Delhi areas’.
New Delhi: Accusing the Opposition parties—the AAP and Congress—of misleading people over the issues of Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC), Union minister and BJP’s poll in-charge in Delhi Prakash Javadekar said that the people of Delhi will teach them a lesson while voting for the Assembly polls on 8 February. Making a strong pitch against the ongoing protests at Shaheen Bagh, Javadekar said that the sit-in protest was illegal and aimed at troubling lakhs of people residing in Noida and South Delhi areas.
“Everyone protesting at Shaheen Bagh knows the fact that the CAA has nothing to do with any Indian citizen irrespective of their religion. Yet, they have been protesting to mislead people. When five-year-old children say Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Amit Shah must be killed, it becomes evident that it is not a protest against CAA. It is clearly poisoning the minds of young children,” Javadekar said at the India News Manch organised in the national capital on 22 January. He said that NRC was first started in Assam by Rajiv Gandhi while the National Population Register (NPR) was introduced by the UPA government led by the Congress, but the same party was misleading the country when the two were being executed by the Modi government.
Javadekar tore into the claims of the AAP government of drastic improvement in education in public health sectors in Delhi, saying the dropout rate in Delhi government schools was the highest in the country. “Dropout rate in Delhi government schools is the highest in country. The number of admissions in Delhi government schools is going down,” he claimed, adding that the basic infrastructure in government schools across the country improved because of the initiatives and funds allocated by the Central government led by the BJP.
The Union minister accused the AAP government of stalling development projects like Delhi Metro as well as public welfare schemes like Ayushman Bharat, Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana and Kisan Subsidy in Delhi. “It is because of the AAP that phase IV of Delhi Metro has been delayed by four years. Metro projects are going on in 12 states out of which five are non-BJP ruled states. Nowhere in the country has any metro project been delayed except Delhi where the Kejriwal government created one after another hurdle to delay the project and subjected Delhiites to harassment,” he alleged.
Javadekar exuded confidence that the BJP will form the next government in Delhi that will ensure “three-engine growth” to the national capital. On AAP’s claim of winning all 70 seats in Delhi, the minister said this overconfidence of the AAP would prove beneficial for the BJP. “The AAP government has failed on all fronts, including its major poll plank of anti-corruption. Half the ministers of the AAP government are facing charges like fake degree, domestic violence or economic offences,” he added.
