With the Delhi elections coming up fast, the entire nation is focused on what could very well be declared as another epic battle after the May 2014 general assembly elections in India. And the two rivals who are all set to lock horns with each other are India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Aam Aadmi Party’s chief Arvind Kejirwal. While Kejriwal has been campaigning for the coveted position for nearly two months now, and the BJP has decided to field Modi as its face for the assembly elections, as they hunt for a local leader to take up the mantle in Delhi.
At the public meeting that saw lakhs of BJP supporters gathered to witness their leader in action. Modi openly criticized Kejriwal and his anarchist ways of running the government, terming the latter as being fit only for the jungles. This was almost immediately followed by Kejriwal’s retaliation about the BJP being nervous about the AAP’s prominence in Delhi. Kejriwal further slammed the BJP for not having a solid agenda for Delhi, which would not allow them to govern or agitate it.
Modi’s claims of providing Delhi with a stable government that would help the city develop and make it slum free by building pucca houses for everyone by 2022 was also met with criticism by the AAP leader, who claimed that the BJP government tends to demolish jhuggis every time it comes to power. Kejriwal further commented that instant results are needed while goals to be met in 2022 would not serve the current needs of the country.
The AAP also spoke about how it had freed Delhi of corruption in just 49 days, while the Modi government is yet to start its agenda of eradicating corruption after 7 months of assuming office. Kejriwal also mentioned about how Modi’s promise to reduce electricity tariff by 30% backfired and the government ended up increasing it by 15% instead, as opposed to the AAP which cut electricity tariffs in half after assuming office in Delhi.
Popularity Count
The AAP seems to have a slight edge over the BJP in Delhi, given the way that the former managed the state in the initial days of winning the Delhi elections. However, Kejriwal’s disruptive ways of running the government did not go down well with voters. It is this slight disadvantage that the BJP is still hanging on to, in an attempt to thwart AAP’s designs on Delhi. Kejriwal knows this all too well and is extremely careful this time around, knowing very well that defeating the BJP would be an uphill task. So there is no doubt that in the coming days, the battle between the ‘Muffler Man’ and ‘Modi’ would get more slanderous.
Summary
The AAP and BJP are set to battle it out in the upcoming Delhi elections. Judging by the way the parties are hurling abuses at each other, there is no doubt that this is going to be a rather vituperative battle.
