Voting for Cong, BJP would mean betraying God & country: Kejriwal
BY MPost3 May 2014 12:15 AM GMT
MPost3 May 2014 12:15 AM GMT
In a statement which could stoke a controversy, Aam Aadmi Party convener Arvind Kejriwal on Friday said that voting for the Congress and the BJP would amount to betraying God and the country.
While campaigning for his colleague Kumar Vishwas in Muslim-dominated localities of Aurangabad and Musafirkhana in Amethi, Kejriwal, wearing AAP’s trademark cap in which ‘I am aam aadmi’ was written in Urdu, said ‘Yeh aapka chunav hai...100% matdaan hona chahiye, har ek kee jimmedari hai Congress and BJP ko haraye. Bura mat manana bhaiyyon aur maaf karna agar mai jyada bol gaya hun, par ek bhi vote agar Congress aur BJP ko pada, tou woh Khuda aur desh ke sath gaddari hogi. (This is your election, there should be 100% polling. It is the duty of everyone to defeat the Congress and BJP. Please don’t take it to heart and forgive me if I you think I am exaggerating, but for me voting for BJP and Congress amounts to betraying God and the country)’.
Vishwas is contesting against Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi and Kejriwal himself is contesting against BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi in Varanasi.
Kejriwal said, ‘Vishwas is a professor and a poet. He used to earn Rs four lakh per day in poet meets. But he has sacrificed everything and has been living in Amethi for the last four months. He could have easily won the Lok Sabha election from a safe seat but chose Amethi because he wants to strike at the root of corruption.’
Kejriwal claimed BJP and Congress were spending crores to buy votes. ‘Take money but vote for AAP,’ he told the people.
He also said Congress and BJP have entered into a tacit understanding for Lok Sabha elections in Amethi and Varanasi. ‘The two parties have put up weak candidates in the two constituencies to cut AAP’s votes and help each other’s top leadership win elections. The top leaders of both the parties are also not campaigning against each other in their respective constituencies,’ he said.
He also referred to the physical assaults on him and Vishwas by BJP and Congress workers, which showed that the two parties are hand in glove. ‘If BJP was really serious about defeating Rahul, it would have not fielded any candidate,’ he said.
Kejriwal also dared Rahul to have a debate with Vishwas. ‘If he comes it would be great, but if he doesn’t dare to come claiming a paucity of time, then I welcome Priyanka Gandhi for an open debate,’ he added.
The AAP leader claimed that the Congress had conceded defeat in Amethi. ‘For the first time ever, Congress president Sonia Gandhi came and addressed a rally here. Priyanka has been here for the past 14 days. It shows they are worried,’ he said.
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