Hyderabad: Alleging that the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is "discredited" for having joined hands with Congress, senior BJP leader and Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister M Venkaiah Naidu on Sunday expressed confidence that his party would win the Delhi Assembly elections comfortably.
"The BJP is confident that it will win Delhi state Assembly elections comfortably. The AAP is discredited because it has joined hands with Congress, against its own promise of not to align with Congress. (It) did not take any action against the Congress government of its scams and scandals, including CWG, because it was depending on their support.
"At the end of it, they ran away leaving the responsibility and betrayed the people of Delhi. That being the case, I don't think people will give them any chance at all," he told reporters here on the sidelines of an event. Observing that Delhi's growth is "interlinked" with Centre, he said people of the national capital are "wise enough to understand" it.
Naidu claimed that AAP has lost the prestige it once enjoyed due to factors like several leaders including founding members quitting the party, some of its leaders making controversial statements like favouring plebiscite in Jammu and Kashmir and its founder (Arvind Kejriwal) himself asking people to take money from other parties but vote for AAP.
Some AAP MLAs faced allegations in recent times. The party candidate who won in Delhi Cantonment polls was shown on TV throwing money at people and some AAP members themselves have alleged that distribution of tickets to fight elections was not being done in a democratic manner, Naidu alleged.
"If an eight month-old party faces so much allegations, it will be disappointment if it is felt that this party would reform the country. Some of us felt, after the party was formed and after listening to him, that the party may try to bring about a change in society, that there would be a healthy competition.
"But, unfortunately, it was proved in practice that all that would not be possible. Shanti Bhushanji himself said (Kiran) Bedi is a good candidate. After seeing all this, there is not much of a difference between AAP and Congress. Because, it joined hands with Congress. It is behaving like Congress. It indulged in vote-bank politics in the issue of Batla encounter. It could not display moral authority," he said.
Asked about the row over Preamble of the Constitution, he said the ongoing debate is "meaningless" and an "unnecessary controversy is trying to be created". "The Preamble (of the Constitution) originally did not have the word of socialism and secularism. It was framed during Jawaharlal Nehru, Babasaheb Ambedkar, Sardar Patel, Gopalaswami Iyengar.. all those stalwarts they debated, discussed and then approved the Preamble. Subsequently, during emergency, Madam Smt. Indira Gandhi for her own political vote bank politics, she brought secularism and socialism. Point is, there is no need to specially mention that secularism is part of our Constitution," he said.
Articles of the Constitution provides for equality and freedom of faith, speech and expression, he said. "As far as government is concerned, there is no proposal to change what has been changed during emergency. But, unnecessary controversy.. as if we have an agenda..," he said.
Asserting that Indian people are secular by nature, he charged that some parties were trying to "pollute the atmosphere" for vote-bank politics. "There is no vote bank politics now. Appeasement of none and justice for all is our policy," Naidu said.
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