Sisodia should be given Bharat Ratna but being hounded for political motive: Kejriwal

Kejriwal said the people of Gujarat are sad and are bearing the brunt of the arrogance of the BJP regime of last 27 years in the state

Aam Aadmi Party’s national convener Arvind Kejriwal defended his senior party leader, and Delhi’s deputy chief minister, Manish Sisodia against the CBI investigation into the alleged irregularities in Delhi’s liquor policy.

Kejriwal, on Monday, said that instead of giving Sisodia a “Bharat Ratna” for improving education in the nation's capital, the central government was trying to settle political scores in view of the upcoming Gujarat assembly election.

The Delhi chief minister said, “Sisodia, the world’s best education minister, may be arrested and who knows I, too, will get arrested.”

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Referring to a New York Times report on Delhi’s “education model”, Kejriwal told a press conference here that the central government was “hounding” Sisodia instead of praising his work. Kejriwal said:

“Instead of appreciating Delhi’s education model that has been published in a newspaper where the leaders of the world want to get their pictures printed, the central government is targeting Sisodia,” the AAP chief said.

Kejriwal claimed that there were a lot of cases being registered against his party members because of the upcoming Gujarat elections, and implied that AAP was making inroads into Gujarat.

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“Inki zamin khisak rahi hai (Their ground is moving). And, that’s the reason they are trying to arrest us. They will arrest Sisodia and then Kejriwal,” the Delhi chief minister told the media at the Taj hotel here.

Sitting beside Kejriwal, Sisodia claimed his innocence and said that the Delhi chief minister was his “political guru” and that Sisodia had always done things under Kejriwal’s “guidance and consultation.”

Kejriwal continued with his verbal attack against the centre while addressing a town hall in Sabarkantha district’s Himatnagar.

“They arrested my health minister (Satyendra Jain) in a false case. He is in jail for two months. I would have sacked him if he was corrupt, which he is not. They are doing it to stop the good work that we have done in education and health in Delhi. We believe that the central government should invite Sisodia to learn how to improve education,” Kejriwal said.

Also Read | Sisodia says BJP wants him to leave AAP; Anurag Thakur says it’s not swaraj but ‘sharab raj’ in Delhi

Alluding to the incident from Mahabharata, where Arjun asked for Lord Krishna by his side, while Duryodhan sought Krishna’s army right before the war, Kejriwal said: “Aaj in logo ke paas puri sena hai. Inke pass puri taqat hai—CBI, ED, Income Tax, police aur itna sara paisa. Hamare paas Shri Krishna hain. Hamare sath bhagwan hain aur ant me jeet sachchai ki hogi, bhagwan ki hogi.”

“(Today, these people (BJP) have the whole army. They have all the power—CBI, ED, Income Tax, police and lots of money. We have Krishna. We have god with us, and in the end truth will win, god will prevail.)”

Kejriwal attacked the Bharatiya Janata Party—the ruling party in Gujarat for more than two decades—for the “poor schools and education standards in Gujarat”.

The AAP chief, who was visiting Gujarat for the fifth time in less than a month, said: “They have ruined schools in the past 27 years of rule. If you give them another chance, they will ruin it further.”

During his town hall address, Kejriwal repeated his ‘guaranteed promises’ of free education in improved schools if AAP came to power in the state. He also promised to open hospitals in cities and villages, and better health infrastructure across the state with “Mohalla clinics” similar to the ones in Delhi.