Kejriwal looking for ‘safe’ seat: Delhi Congress chief Devender Yadav

New Delhi (The Uttam Hindu): Delhi Congress president Devender Yadav claimed on Monday that former Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, his ministerial team and AAP MLAs have decided to desert their current seats and look for safe constituencies - a virtual acceptance of defeat before Assembly elections. Yadav said even before the announcement of the date of the Delhi Assembly elections there is speculation that most AAP MLAs have launched a hunt for a safe “seat” from where they can win easily. The Congress leader claimed the pre-poll feedback received by the AAP seems to be so discouraging that Kejriwal has sensed his impending defeat. The former Chief Minister is planning to desert his New Delhi constituency and shift to another seat, as people in his Assembly segment are determined to throw the corrupt AAP out of power, said Yadav. He said that Kejriwal during his “padyatra” got a sense of the people’s anger towards the AAP. Shocked by the public anger, Kejriwal has realised that he has no option but to run away from his New Delhi seat, said Yadav. He said that Kejriwal’s so-called “padayatra” was in fact an exercise to explore a safe seat for him, but the adverse public mood has put him in a dilemma. Yadav said that Kejriwal’s desperation due to the poor performance of AAP’s sitting MLAs was evident when he announced the first list of 11 candidates for the Assembly elections and out of them six were dissidents from other parties. By denying tickets to sitting AAP MLAs from these six seats, Kejriwal has himself admitted that his party’s legislators did not carry out development work in their constituencies.

Over the past five years, AAP legislators only indulged in crime and corruption, something that was confirmed by the recent arrest of Uttam Nagar MLA Naresh Balyan on extortion charges and the two-year imprisonment awarded to another AAP MLA Naresh Yadav on sacrilege charges by a Punjab court.