New Delhi: Sunil Yadav, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate against Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in the New Delhi constituency, is confident of victory and that too by 25,000 votes.
Terming Kejriwal a high-profile politician, Yadav said Kejriwal had fooled the constituency by calling himself “aam aadmi” (a common man). “When Kejriwal came here (New Delhi) to fight election, people thought he would listen to them. But after five years, we hear he is a high-profile politicians,” Yadav said and denied any fear of facing the AAP leader.
“We had come out to defeat Sheila Dikshit. Now I am out to defeat Kejriwal,” Yadav said.
On the absence of local issues and focus on national issues in the BJP manifesto, Yadav said he was fighting the election on local agenda. “I am talking about people living in JJ clusters in my constituency. I am talking about their water and electricity bills. New Delhi has not received the benefit of free water and electricity. I am talking about them,” Yadav said.
“Kejriwal forgot about the constituency after victory. I am local and know about my constituency and the problems people have been facing,” he said.
He accused the Delhi Chief Minister of misusing money accrued as the state’s share of GST return on his advertising. “Rs 850 crore were spent by Kejriwal on advertisements, which is state ‘s share of GST returns.”
In 2013, Kejriwal challenged then Chief Minister Dikshit in New Delhi and won. While Kejriwal received 53.46 per cent votes, Dikshit came second with 22.23 per cent, followed by Vijender Gupta (BJP) with 21.68 per cent.
Kejriwal became the Chief Minister, but quit after 49 days. In the next polls in 2015, Kejriwal retained the seat with 64.34 per cent votes. He defeated then Delhi BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma.
