Expressing solidarity with Puducherry Chief Minister V Narayanaswamy and demanding full Statehood for both the Union Territories (UTs), Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal hit out at BJP led Central Government and said that the Lieutenant Governors in both Delhi and Puducherry were appointees of the BJP.
"The L-G of Puducherry is creating a lot of obstacles in the development work and creating problems for the elected Government...We are facing exactly similar problems in Delhi," said Kekriwal, Aam Admi Party (AAP) National Convener .
Meanwhile, in Delhi AAP leader Gopal Rai also said the party would discuss strategies for the campaign at a meeting of MLAs (Member of Legislative Assembly) on Saturday and office-bearers on Sunday.
In absence of Statehood people have suffered enough, Rai said adding "As party has tried everything, now we have decided to go to peoples’ court,"
Rai said that all the options from approaching the Central Government to the Supreme Court, failed but no justice has been done. Now people will decide it, he added.
Turning down any possibility of an alliance, he said that the party will contest and win all seven seats in Delhi."
He said the Centre was not interested in fighting corruption. "The Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB) was taken away from us as the Central Government is not interested in ending corruption," Rai said.
Pointing out the issues Delhi is facing due to lack of statehood, he said the AAP government could not do anything for the security of women as the city police is not under the government and is not even answerable to it.
Hitting out central government, Rai said "The Narendra Modi government is determined on taking revenge from the people of Delhi and this started within three months of the Arvind Kejriwal government getting elected in 2015 with the highest ever mandate in the history of independent India. The people of Delhi will not tolerate injustice anymore," he said.
In 2014, all the seven parliamentary seats went to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) but still the BJP deceived Delhi, he said, adding that the party went back on its decades old promise of granting full statehood to Delhi and on the contrary tried to restrain the elected government of Delhi to take welfare measures on its own.