‘BJP would have accused Lord Ram of running away’

Arvind Kejriwal, the chief of the Aam Aadmi Party, hit out at the BJP on Friday for mocking his exit after 49 days as Delhi chief minister, by using the analogy of Hindu Lord Ram’s exile.

‘Lord Ram went to exile for 14 years. We all say that he made such a grand sacrifice, left power. Ram was fortunate that the BJP people were not born then. If they had, then they would have said Ram ran away. He is a bhagoda (runaway)...’ Mr Kejriwal said in Amritsar, where he was campaigning for the national election.

It needs courage to give up the Chief Minister’s chair, he added.

Kejriwal quit as Chief Minister in February amid high drama after failing to push his anti-graft Jan Lokpal Bill in the Delhi assembly. 

The BJP slammed the AAP chief for ‘hiding behind metaphor.’

The party’s spokesperson Nirmala Sitharaman said, ‘He has misled the public with promises that he knew, even as he made them, that he wouldn’t keep them. So to glorify himself or to seek a cover of ‘I could have done it, but I was noble in my intention,’ all this doesn’t help. To seek protection by giving this kind of an example or metaphors doesn’t help. 

‘He has only run away knowing very well that to stay in the system and cleanse it, to stay in the system and deliver, is the challenge which he never wants to face.’ 

‘Congress and BJP are plundering the nation as they are greedy for power,’ Kejriwal told reporters in Amritsar, even as, he claimed that, ‘Whatever AAP is doing, only for the wellbeing of the people of nation.’ 

Defending his decision of resigning from post of Delhi Chief Minister, he said, ‘Resignation was submitted purely on the basis of principles. People, who are telling me deserter, knew nothing about sacrifice.’ 

On 1984 anti-sikh riots, he said that party was trying its best to get justice for the riot-victims.

Kejriwal claimed that his party adhered to the real policy of Gandhism which was allegedly distorted by other parties. During his road show in Gurdaspur, he accused the SAD-BJP ruling alliance of drug menace in the state.

‘Drugs are spoiling the lives of our youths like termite and the Punjab government and its ministers are responsible for this menace,’ he said.

He alleged that Punjab minister Bikram Singh Majithia was having nexus with drug smugglers.