We will fight till end to stop gas price hike, says Kejriwal

Aam Aadmi Party convener Arvind Kejriwal on Sunday appealed to the people to vote for his party candidates, promising to ‘fight till our last breath’ to stop the gas price hike in Parliament.

Addressing a rally here, Kejriwal said, ‘If you send us to Parliament, they (BJP and Congress) will not gather the courage and will never dare to increase the gas prices... We will fight till our last breath, we will sacrifice our lives? but won’t let the gas prices get quadruple at any cost.’  ‘If you vote for BJP or Congress, then be prepared to face the hike in gas prices, which will also lead to increase in prices of essential commodities... Even vegetable and fruit prices will shoot up,’ he said in this temple city, where he is pitted against BJP’s PM candidate Narendra Modi.

The former Delhi Chief Minister said after he wrote a letter to the Election Commission requesting it to stop the implementation of hike in gas prices, the poll panel withheld it for two months till the elections are over.

Kejriwal was speaking against the proposed gas price hike which, according to him, will largely benefit Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries.

Referring to Modi’s alleged links with industrialists, particularly Gautam Adani, Kejriwal said, ‘Adani had a business of around Rs 3,000 crore in 2002 when Modi became Chief Minister of Gujarat, but after all these years now the business of Adani Group is Rs 84,000 crore.’ 

Kejriwal alleged that Modi was Adani’s friend, and gave away agricultural lands at the rate of Re 1 per square metre to him and Ambani. He alleged that ‘these hoardings of Modi and his choppers rides are in return of his favours’ to them. ‘This is the development model of Gujarat... where farmers and the people suffered but Adani and Ambani benefited,’ he alleged.

Adani, who had been in the eye of storm in the past few weeks, earlier on Sunday rejected such allegations and said he got no special favours from Modi and his group has since 1993 acquired only barren waste land for infrastructure projects. The AAP chief also claimed that if BJP came to power at the Centre it would bring in FDI in retail sector.