BJP, Congress Copying Kejriwal’s ‘Delhi Model’ While Announcing Welfare Schemes, Says AAP

Aam Aadmi Party’s Madhya Pradesh unit president Rani Agarwal on Thursday said populist schemes being announced by the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress ahead of state Assembly polls at the end of the year have been copied from Arvind Kejriwal’s “Delhi model”.

The welfare schemes launched by Delhi Chief Minister Kejriwal for the people there in education, health, electricity and water sectors were described as “revadis” (a sweet as well as political term for freebies) by the BJP and Congress but they are now copying it, she told PTI in an interview.

“Populist announcements by the BJP and the Congress are being used as an election gimmick to create confusion among voters in Madhya Pradesh, but it is very difficult for both the parties to implement Kejriwal’s Delhi model at the ground level,” Agarwal, who is the mayor of Singrauli, remarked.

The BJP and the Congress are like two brothers when it comes to making hollow election announcements, she added.

The BJP government in Madhya Pradesh has started the process of transferring Rs 1,000 per month to the bank accounts of about 1.25 crore women of poor and middle class under the ‘Mukhyamantri Ladli Behna Yojana’, with Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan announcing the amount would be gradually increased to Rs 3,000 per month.

On the other hand, Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, during her rally on Monday in Jabalpur, promised to give Rs 1,500 per month to women, provide LPG cylinders for Rs 500 and 100 units of electricity free of cost every month, apart from restoration of the old pension scheme for government employees and farm loan waiver if her party wins the Assembly polls.

Since Independence, MP has seen Congress or BJP governments but the condition of the state is pitiable with massive corruption, shortcomings in the education and health sectors and unemployment, Agarwal alleged.

“AAP will follow Kejriwal’s Delhi model and contest the upcoming Assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh on local issues. People are only concerned with work. We will tell voters that if we have done good work in Delhi, then vote for us in Madhya Pradesh. Otherwise, don’t vote for us,” she said.

The Aam Aadmi Party has announced it will contest all 230 Assembly seats in Madhya Pradesh in the year-end polls.

In the 2018 polls it had fought on 208 seats, winning none and losing deposits in 207. Its vote share was a meagre 0.66 per cent.

(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed – PTI)