The Aam Aadmi Party on Thursday made clear its national ambitions, with Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal declaring that the party will contest elections in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Goa, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat that are scheduled to be held over the next two years.
Kejriwal made the declaration at the meeting of the National Council of the party, stating that the work done by the AAP government in the national capital has been appreciated by people all over the country and they were looking at it as an alternative.
“Everywhere in the country, people are talking about free electricity, the transformation in Delhi's schools and health care system. They also want free medicines,” said Kejriwal, who is also the national convener of the AAP.
He said the AAP made history by forming the government in a state only a year after it was formed, and highlighted the party's back-to-back victories in the Delhi Assembly elections in 2015 and 2020.
“For the first time in this country, the AAP has practised politics of work and development. So far, no party in the country has sought votes on the basis of the schools they built or on the issue of health care or electricity supply. Votes were sought in the name of caste and religion,” he said.
Kejriwal took potshots at the BJP governments in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, saying the ministers in those states first dared the AAP government in Delhi to a challenge with regard to the condition of schools there and then ran away from the arena.
Without naming the BJP, he said the party was busy referring to incidents that happened in 1200AD or 1300AD and exhorting the people to take revenge for that. “They have no vision for the future,” he said.
Putting forth his party as an alternative at the national level, Kejriwal said it achieved in five years in Delhi what the BJP and the Congress could not achieve in 70 years.
Recounting the last one year since it won the Assembly election, Kejriwal said his government worked quietly and calmly, taking everyone together, in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. In an apparent reference to the BJP's attacks on his government and the involvement of Union Home Minister Amit Shah in handling the coronavirus situation in Delhi, he said, “We were abused when cases went up. But we kept quiet and did our work.”
Kejriwal said Delhi was in an especially worrisome situation in November 2020, when the daily tally went over 8,500 cases. “Even when the number of cases reached 8,500, 7,000 beds were vacant in our hospitals. This was the result of the investment we had made in hospitals and Mohalla clinics,” he said.
Kejriwal, who has been aggressively espousing the cause of the farmers protesting against the three contentious farm laws, said while what happened on Republic Day was unfortunate, those who are actually responsible for the violence should be brought to book and criticised the Centre for going after the farmers’ leaders.
He also asserted that the andolan is not yet over, saying the issues that the farmers had raised continued to be relevant.
