Lok Sabha elections 2019: Arvind Kejriwal cites AAP survey to claim Muslim support
Other AAP leaders, who asked not to be named, said 5,00,000 responders from Delhi were part of the study carried out through phone calls between March 5 and 6 by “multiple private vendors” to whom the task was outsourced. HT could not independently verify these contentions.
delhi Updated: Mar 12, 2019 23:47 ISTDelhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal said on Tuesday that a survey conducted by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) had revealed that 56% of Delhi residents thought the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) alleged politicising of the recent tensions between India and Pakistan issue were viewed unfavourably by voters in the national capital.
Kejriwal did not give details of who conducted the survey, the sample size, or the methodology.
Other leaders of the party, who asked not to be named, later said that 5,00,000 responders from the city were part of the study carried out through phone calls between March 5 and 6 by “multiple private vendors” to whom the task was outsourced. HT could not independently verify these contentions.
Kejriwal said the survey also showed that Muslims in Delhi have chosen the AAP over the Congress. “According to our survey, no Hindu will vote for Congress anyway. Muslims were initially confused, but now they will vote for us,” said Kejriwal, who is the national convener of the AAP. He did not disclose any figures in terms of numbers or percentages to support this statement.
According to 2011 Census data, Delhi has a Muslim population of around 13%. North-east Delhi, the Lok Sabha constituency with the highest Muslim population, was won by Manoj Tiwari of the BJP — now the chief of the party’s Delhi unit — in 2014. Both the Congress and the BJP said the CM’s contentions had no basis in truth.
Delhi Congress spokesperson Jitender Kochar called the survey “bogus”, while Delhi BJP spokesperson Praveen Shankar Kapoor questioned the methodology and asserted that people of Delhi have rather showed immense support for Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his actions against Pakistan in the aftermath of the February 14 terror attack in Kashmir’s Pulwama in which 40 Central reserve Police Force (CRPF) troopers were killed.
The possibility of an alliance between the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party in Delhi appeared to have fizzled out after both the parties indicated that they aim to contest all seats on their own.
First Published: Mar 12, 2019 23:47 IST