New Delhi: Arvind Kejriwal on Monday asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi to resign if he cannot ensure the chief minister’s security, days after a man flung chilli powder at the Aam Aadmi Party chief inside the Delhi secretariat. Speaking at the party headquarters, Kejriwal claimed that the Aam Aadmi Party government in Delhi did much more during its three-year rule than what Modi did in 12 years as Gujarat chief minister.
“The people of Delhi are proud of their honest chief minister. I want to ask the people of the country if they feel the same about their prime minister,” Kejriwal said. He hit out the BJP-led NDA government over the alleged corruption in the Rafale fighter-jet deal, and Vijay Mallya and Nirav Modi fleeing the country. Targeting the “Gujarat model” of development, the chief minister said, “I challenge… the AAP government in Delhi did much more than he (Narendra Modi) did in Gujarat in 12 years.” Later in the Assembly, Kejriwal asked the prime minister to step down if he cannot ensure the Delhi chief minister’s security.
Speaking at the one-day special session of the Assembly, which was extended by a day till Tuesday, Kejriwal alleged that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was behind the November 20 attack on him as it was “baffled” by the “good work” done by his government. “Narendra Modi should resign if he cannot protect Delhi’s chief minister,” Kejriwal said in the House, which had met to discuss the attack on him and the alleged deletion of names from the voters’ list. Referring to a phone call from Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh after the incident, Kejriwal claimed, “I said either you are worthless or colluding.”
Speaking on a government resolution seeking amendments in the Constitution to bring the Delhi Police under the control of the Delhi government, Kejriwal said 95 per cent policemen were good but “they are being made to do wrong things by the BJP”. “If Delhi Police comes under the elected government of Delhi, it will start working for the good of the people,” he asserted. The resolution, moved by Delhi Home Minister Satyendar Jain and later adopted by the Assembly with voice votes, also stated that in view of pending such amendments, necessary steps should be initiated by the Centre to devolve certain powers to the elected government so that it is in a position to have control over the Delhi Police.
Referring to the recent attack on him, Kejriwal said, “In the last three years, four attacks were made on me. These attacks could not happen if I was not the chief minister of Delhi. “These attacks are not on me, but on the people of Delhi instead… Modi ji is taking revenge from Delhiites for voting the AAP to power in the city,” the chief minister said.
Kejriwal also hit out at Lt Governor Anil Baijal for “creating hurdles” in the functioning of the AAP dispensation. Meanwhile, the Delhi Police said the number of heinous crimes in the national capital had declined this year from last year and it was incorrect to call the city the “crime capital”. The reaction came hours after the Delhi Assembly adopted a government resolution claiming that the city has become the “national crime capital”.