Surprising all present in the Assembly on Monday, Chief Minister of Delhi Arvind Kejriwal announced that his Aam Aadmi Party would campaign for the Bharatiya Janata Party ahead of the 2019 General Election if the Centre granted Delhi full statehood.
He also warned that if the Modi government failed to do so, the party would conduct a “BJP, quit Delhi” campaign. “I want to say to BJP, give full statehood status to Delhi before Lok Sabha polls, every vote of people will go in favour of BJP and we (AAP) will campaign for them in Lok Sabha election,” Kejriwal said in the assembly.
The chief minister made the statement on Monday right before the Delhi Vidhan Sabha unanimously accepted a resolution on full statehood for Delhi. The resolution calls on the Ministry of Home Affairs to introduce a Bill in Parliament to grant Delhi full statehood. As a union territory, Delhi only has partial statehood, and the AAP government does not have control over land, the Delhi Police and law and order, which remain under the control of the Centre. The AAP’s argument has been that an elected government cannot be without any power.
Speaking on the government’s resolution that seeks full statehood status for Delhi that was adopted in the assembly, Kejriwal sought to know from Prime Minister Narendra Modi whether his promise to give full statehood to Delhi during the 2014 Lok Sabha election was just a “jumla” (election rhetoric). “We will have to fight for development of Delhi, our children’s future… I want to ask Modi ji that he had promised full statehood status to Delhiites during the last Lok Sabha election. I want to ask him whether it was ‘jumla’,” he said.
The AAP has been fighting for years to have Delhi granted the status of a state, alleging that the lieutenant governor, who represents the Central government in Delhi, hinders the functioning of the region and works on the behest of the Centre to block the AAP’s initiatives.
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