New Delhi: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said Thursday he was ready to give his life for the country, following his colleagues’ sensational charge that the BJP was trying to murder him.
Kejriwal’s deputy Manish Sisodia claimed threat to the chief minister’s life after unruly clashes broke out between the police and protesting BJP workers in front of his house Wednesday afternoon.
“Kejriwal is not important,” the chief minister said at a launch of an e-auto programme in the Capital Thursday. “I am an ordinary citizen who is ready to give up his life for the country,” he said, but questioned the need for rival BJP’s “goondagardi” yesterday.
“Hooliganism will not propel the country forward, love will. But if the ruling party does this in the Capital, what will the country’s youth think?” he asked.
He said the country had already lost 75 years in “dirty politics, infighting and hooliganism”. “The country needs to move forward with collective effort and hard work,” Kejriwal added.
After the showdown on Wednesday, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia claimed the BJP wanted to kill Kejriwal because of his recent electoral win in Punjab.
Sisodia said: “Due to AAP’s victory and BJP’s defeat in Punjab, BJP wants to murder Arvind Kejriwal. BJP goons were deliberately taken by the police to the residence of CM Kejriwal. They broke CCTV cameras and barriers in front of the CM’s residence.”
Several AAP leaders accused the Delhi police of “facilitating vandalism” by allowing protesters to reach the chief minister’s house.
BJP workers were protesting Kejriwal’s recent comments in the assembly on the film ‘Kashmir Files’. When BJP legislators demanded he make the movie tax free in the state, Kejriwal suggested it should be put up on YouTube instead. “Then it would be free for all,” Kejriwal quipped, amid much laughter and thumping of desks by AAP members.
Also read: The extraordinary TV performances of an ‘ordinary man’ — the week of Arvind Kejriwal