BJP, Congress slam Kejriwal over free travel scheme for women
NEW DELHI: The BJP's Delhi unit Chief Manoj Tiwari on Monday alleged that the AAP government's proposal to make metro and bus travel free for women is a "desperate bid to buy votes".
The BJP leader said Kejriwal is making such announcements because he's fast losing ground in Delhi .
"It seems he's lost his mind... 'ghoshna mantri' (announcement minister) has made another announcement to make people laugh... he made 70 promises and all are lies," he told reporters.
"After the tight slap of defeat, he started the process for implementing 10 per cent reservation for economically weaker sections. He's making such announcements to hold onto his ground in Delhi . It's a desperate bid to buy votes," Tiwari said.
The BJP leader, however, made it clear that he's not against giving free rides to women in buses and the Delhi Metro. "We are not against the idea. There is no problem in giving free rides to women, but where are the buses? The AAPis befooling people," he alleged.
The BJP's Delhi unit has plans for free rides to all in government buses, but we will not make any tall promises,
Tiwari said.
Attacking the Kejriwal government over insufficient number of buses in the city, he said, "Around one crore women in the city will need 20,000 buses, but we have just 3,500-3,800. Where will they sit?"
On the other hand, the Delhi Congress dubbed Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's announcement to provide free travel to women in public transport buses and Metro trains as a "publicity stunt" made in view of the coming Assembly elections here.
Reacting to the decision, Delhi Congress spokesperson Jitender Kochar said the state government should also provide free travel to students and senior citizens in buses and Metro trains.
"Kejriwal often makes announcements which he either does not fulfil or which do not come under his jurisdiction. The Assembly elections in Delhi are due in the next few months and he should stop publicity stunt by making such announcements," Kochar said.
Stating that the AAP lost all the seven Lok Sabha seats in recent polls and was pushed to the third spot on majority of the seats, he said that was why the party was making "populist" announcements for political gains in Assembly elections due early next year.
Both Congress and AAP were routed and the BJP won all the Lok Sabha seats in Delhi with a huge majority.
The AAP was pushed to the third place in five of the seven constituencies by the Congress.
Former Delhi Congress MLA Mukesh Sharma said that Delhi people can no longer be "fooled" by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.
