lok-sabha-elections

Updated: Mar 31, 2019 22:06 IST

Delhi Chief Minister and Aam Aadmi Party convener Arvind Kejriwal on Sunday said there is emergency-like situation in the country since the Narendra Modi government came to power in 2014. He said PM Modi has made one community fight with another.

“Pakistan has been trying to create divisions among Indians. They failed in their attempt. But in the last five years, the pair of PM Modi and Amit Shah has succeeded in doing what Pakistan could not in achieve in 70 years,”

“I have come here in Andhra Pradesh from Delhi to make an appeal to you, vote Modi out in 2019 election to save the country and democracy. If the BJP wins this election, India will not survive. They will change constitution and end democracy,” said Kejriwal at an election rally in Andhra Pradesh’s Visakhapatnam.

Launching a scathing attack at the BJP-led government at the Centre, Kejriwal said, “Some people ask me if not Modi who…My reply to those people is simple, if you develop tumour in your body, will you remove it or ask if not tumour who?”

The AAP chief alleged that the Modi government is using central agencies against all Opposition parties but not ready to probe its own corruption. “This is the most corrupt government in 70 years…Demonetisation is the biggest scam in 70 years,” Kejriwal said.

He also claimed that BJP’s Lok Sabha MP Sakshi Maharaj has said that “if the BJP wins in 2019, this will be the last election”. Kejriwal said BJP president Amit Shah also said that “if the BJP wins 2019 election, no one can defeat it till 2050”.

“How do they know? This shows they want to change constitution like Hitler did it in Germany,” he said.

Kejriwal and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee addressed the election rally seeking vote for Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu’s Telugu Desam Party in the state.

Incidentally, it was at the same venue, the Indira Priyadarshini Municipal Stadium of Visakhapatnam, that Naidu had organised a rally for BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in 2014. PM Modi and actor-turned-politician Pawan Kalyan too had addressed the joint rally seeking vote for the BJP-led coalition in the last Lok Sabha elections.

Naidu pulled out of the NDA in March last year over the issue of special category status to Andhra Pradesh. He has been at the frontline in trying to bring Opposition parties together in the Lok Sabha polls to challenge the BJP-led NDA.

The Opposition parties previously held two rallies, one each in Kolkata and New Delhi in January and February respectively. Those two rallies saw bigger participation of the Opposition parties with the Congress leaders also attending them.

Sunday’s rally was meant to be yet another show of opposition unity. Naidu had invited Janata Dal-Secular president HD Deve Gowda, DMK chief MK Stalin, Nationalist Congress Party president Sharad Pawar, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Tejashwi Yadav and former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah among others. But these leaders did not attend the rally. Abdullah had, though, recently addressed a rally in support of Naidu in Andhra Pradesh.