With a little over a fortnight left to go for the Lok Sabha election in Delhi, the Aam Aadmi Party on Friday organised a nukkad natak (street play) to promote the party’s poll plank of full statehood.
The street play was launched from Rajiv Chowk metro station by AAP’s Delhi convener Gopal Rai and the party’s New Delhi candidate, Brajesh Goyal. The play will be showcased across the city.
“AAP has started a movement to make Delhi a full-fledged State. Through this street play, we are trying to inform the public of all the work done by the AAP government in the past four years,” said Mr. Rai.
The senior AAP leader said that the Delhi government had halved electricity rate, gave free water and improved the condition of schools and hospitals. “But due to lack of full statehood, Delhi’s development in its entirety has not happened... while doing all this work, the Centre imposed thousands of hurdles,” he said.
“Delhiites pay the highest taxes to the Centre, despite this, it is being treated unfairly. If Delhi becomes a full-fledged State, then the value of the votes of the public will increase and development of Delhi will be 10 times faster,” Mr. Rai said.
During the street play, a crowd gathered at the venue chanting “Modi, Modi”. Some spectators said that the “entire AAP was a natak (drama)”.
“Poornrajya ho nai sakta, jab Congress thi, tab bhi nai hui, ab kya hogi? (statehood is not possible, even when Congress was in power it did not happen, what will be different now?)” said one of the audience members.