CM: Will be walkover for BJP if Kejriwal is pitted against PM in 2024 polls

Guwahati: Taking a dig at Delhi deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia over his claim that CM Arvind Kejriwal will emerge as the prime challenger to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the 2024 Lok Sabha election, Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Saturday said it will be a walkover for BJP if it happens so.
“Badhiya hai . It is good for BJP if Arvind Kejriwal is the opposition’s face for the 2024 election because people in many states have not even heard his name. We will win by a bigger margin,” Sarma said when asked whether the coming Lok Sabha polls will be Modi versus Kejriwal.
“In any game, say cricket, an opposition is needed. Someone needs to play against Australia also. Modiji versus Kejriwal will be a good game. It will amount to a walkover for BJP,” Sarma said.
On allegation by AAP that the Centre was trying to degrade Kejriwal’s healthcare model, Sarma said Assam’s healthcare system was better than Delhi’s “mohalla clinics”.
“Delhi’s mohalla clinics cannot be a model. No one will come to India to see our healthcare facilities if mohalla clinics become the model. If there can be at all a model for healthcare, people should come down to Assam and see how in every district we are promoting a medical college.”
Sarma and Sisodia have also locked horns in the court over a defamation case filed by the Assam CM over the Delhi deputy CM accusing him of “brazen corruption” under the “pretext of the Covid-19 pandemic”.
The AAP leader alleged that the Assam government had given contracts to companies owned by Sarma’s wife and son’s business partners for a supply of PPE kits above the going market rates in March 2020 when Sarma was the state’s health minister. Sarma’s wife, Riniki Bhuyan Sarma, has also filed a separate Rs 100-crore civil defamation case against Sisodia.