Deputy Manish Sisodia takes a dig at new UP govt, says it is ‘against love’

New Delhi: With the incumbent Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) scaling up its attack, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has gone all out to secure a victory in its first full-fledged civic elections on April 23.

While the AAP chief and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal has cancelled his scheduled visit to Gujarat on Sunday, his deputy Manish Sisodia is busy criticising anti-Romeo squads set up by the newly-elected BJP government in Uttar Pradesh.

“Wo prem karne walon ko pakadte hai, hum khule main sharab pene walon ko pakadte hai (They apprehend people who love, we nab people who drink in open),” Mr Sisodia said addressing a public meeting in West Delhi’s Janakpuri area. Last year, the Delhi government’s excise department had launched a crackdown against drinking in public places.

Mr Kejriwal will not be attending the party’s Gandhinagar meeting. “We have been told that he (Mr Kejriwal) is busy with the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) polls where names of candidates are being finalised,” AAP Saurashtra zone convener Kanu Kalsaria told reporters at Ahmedabad.

The Delhi chief minister on Saturday morning addressed a press conference at his official residence here and announced that his party will abolish the residential house tax and waive off arrears if voted to power in the capital’s civic bodies.

“Just like the huge mandate given to the Aam Aadmi Party by the people of Delhi to run the Delhi Government, I am confident they will also repose their faith in us to fix the ailing municipal bodies of Delhi,” Mr Kejriwal told reporters. After the drubbing in the recent Assembly polls in Punjab and Goa, the AAP sees the forthcoming elections as an opportunity to redeem itself.

The party’s major challenge will be the BJP which has been ruling the three municipal bodies for 10 consecutive years.

The forthcoming polls will also throw a challenge before the Congress which could not retain even a single Assembly seat even after ruling the city for 15 years.

The BJP is already down to some serious business. BJP president Amit Shah addressed nearly 66,000 party workers at Delhi’s Ramlila Maidan on Saturday.