Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday said that Aam Aadmi Party is willing to quit politics if the Bharatiya Janata Party conducts the civic polls on time and wins them.
“I challenge the BJP,” Kejriwal told reporters outside the Delhi Assembly. “Don’t play with the country’s welfare because you are scared to lose the elections.”
The Delhi chief minister stated that the BJP asserts itself as the biggest party in the world, but is in reality, afraid of losing in a small election to his party.
Kejriwal also took to Twitter, saying that continuously postponing the elections is “an insult to martyrs” who had sacrificed their lives for democracy.
“Today they are postponing the Delhi Municipal Corporation elections due to fear of defeat, tomorrow they will postpone the elections of the states and the country,” Kejriwal wrote.
The Aam Aadmi Party leader’s remarks came a day after the Union Cabinet approved a Bill to merge the trifurcated municipal corporations of Delhi.
The municipal corporation elections were scheduled to be held in April. However, on March 9, the Election Commission deferred the polling indefinitely, citing a communication from Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal.
AAP leaders said that the unification of municipal corporations could have been done in the last few years, as the BJP has been in power in the Centre since 2014. But, the BJP is doing it purposefully now to postpone the elections because they know that they will not win.
BJP leaders, however, have maintained that the move will prevent “the demise of ambitious civic schemes”.
On March 17, the Aam Aadmi Party moved the Supreme Court seeking directions to the Election Commission to conduct the Delhi civic polls in a “free, fair and expeditious manner”.
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