Want to make three new universities in Delhi: Sisodia
‘Congress in Delhi is not strong and this time its vote share will drop heavily’
NEW DELHI: Amid the electoral battle of 2019 where the Aam Aadmi Party made the demand of full-statehood to Delhi the prime agenda, Deputy Chief Minister of Delhi Manish Sisodia said that he is working to make three new universities in Delhi.
"If Delhi was a full statehood then in the last four years we could have made new universities. I want to make three new universities in Delhi. Within a month of getting full-statehood I can pass the bills for the universities," the Deputy CM said in an exclusive interview to the Millennium Post. The planning of these universities are in the pipeline and as per plan vocational training and teachers' training are likely to be the main key areas of focus for the individual universities.
"Full statehood is not a name or a slogan but it a sense of responsibility for the people of Delhi and for the elected government too," he said.
The senior leader of AAP also said that the opposition parties like Trinamool led by Mamata Banerjee, Chandrababu Naidu's party and others have supported the demand of the AAP.
"In this election, AAP's MPs will play a key role in forming the government. Many opposition parties have already supported our demand and the alliance of these parties will form the government in the Centre this time, therefore, we will not face any issues in passing the bill on full-statehood," said Manish Sisodia.
Talking about the alliance with the Congress party, he said that the AAP wanted to form an alliance in the 18 seats of Delhi, Haryana and Chandigarh but Congress wanted only in Delhi, therefore, the alliance did not materialize. "Congress in Delhi is not strong and this time their vote share will drop heavily. An alliance only in Delhi was never needed so it's the best to fight in all the seven seats with our own power," he said.
The AAP leader also talked about the party's stand on staying away from the communal and caste-based politics. "From the past few days, we are raising the issue related to religion about Hans Raj Hans because he is fighting from a reserved seat where a Muslim candidate cannot fight. We have raised the issue because it is illegal. BJP could have given the ticket to him from some other seat. In the case of Atishi, we never asked people to vote in the name of her caste or religion but we responded when Congress lied about her religion," said Deputy CM Sisodia.
Talking about the recent incident where AAP lawmaker Anil Vajpayee joined the BJP, Manish Sisodia said, "I earlier told the press that BJP contacted seven AAP MLAs and offered Rs 10 Crore. Vajpayee was one of those seven MLAs. BJP later claimed that 14 MLAs are in touch with them. This is the kind of poaching politics they do and our politics is of giving teaching to children. I can assure that no other MLA will join BJP and people will respond to BJP by defeating them in this election for doing such politics."
