New Delhi: AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday vowed to defeat BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi in Varanasi and denied speculation that he might join the BJP.
Addressing impromptu meetings in east Delhi in support of AAP candidate Rajmohan Gandhi, Kejriwal launched a vicious attack on both the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress.
“If my aim was to reach parliament, then I would have fought the Lok Sabha election from a safe seat,” the former Delhi chief minister thundered from atop an open vehicle.
“I want to defeat Modi. That is why I am fighting election from Varanasi. It is also important to defeat (Congress vice president) Rahul Gandhi. That is why (AAP’s) Kumar Vishwas is contesting in Amethi.
“Both Modi and Rahul (Gandhi) need to be defeated… They lead two parties that believe in corruption,” he said.
Kejriwal pointed out that while the BJP had fielded the tainted former chief minister B.S. Yeddyurappa in Karnataka, the AAP had put up Rajmohan Gandhi, a grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, in east Delhi.
“This is the difference between the BJP and AAP,” he said.
It was the second straight day of campaigning in Delhi by Kejriwal for the Aam Aadmi Party, whose minority government collapsed Feb 14 after just 49 days.
He denied reports in a section of the media that he might end up joining the BJP.
“I have never said that, and I will never join any of these parties,” Kejriwal asserted, as the AAP cavalcade wound its way through some of the more thickly populated areas of east Delhi.
Some 800 supporters accompanied him, some on foot and others on motorcycles. Whenever he stopped to make short speeches, hundreds gathered to hear him.
Kejriwal recalled the attacks on him in Gujarat and Bhiwani in Haryana, and also how he was pelted with eggs when he went to Varanasi. “It is the BJP and Congress who are responsible for these incidents,” he said. (IANS)