Delhi doesn’t look like capital of fifth largest economy: Jay Panda | Latest News Delhi

The people of Delhi have lost faith in the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Congress, and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is the only hope city residents have for conflict-free governance, BJP national vice-president and the party’s Delhi election in-charge Baijayant Jay Panda told HT in an interview. Edited excerpts.

What is so different this time that you think the people of Delhi will vote for the BJP?

This time things are very different. The people of Delhi have given chances to the Congress for many years and now they have given three chances to AAP-da (what the BJP has nicknamed AAP; a Hindi word that translates to disaster), and despite that, Delhi doesn’t look like the Capital of the fifth largest economy in the world, which is soon to become the third largest. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has become the world’s most popular leader and India has been on a different trajectory for the last decade. In the country, the number of airports has doubled, the metro railway system has more than doubled, the start-up ecosystem has become the third largest in the world. But none of this is evident in Delhi. Public transport infrastructure is a mess. Even after 10 years, water is not drinkable, and a lot of promises haven’t been kept like cleaning the Yamuna and solving the pollution problem. People have had enough of the corruption and there’s huge anti-incumbency. They see what’s happening with the rest of India under Modi ji, and they want a conflict-free governance that will develop Delhi.

AAP leaders believe there is no anti-incumbency. They say that there’s anti-incumbency towards the BJP when it comes to law and order.

AAPda is the biggest criminal organisation in Delhi. Look at the liquor scam, the Mohalla clinic scam, the classroom scam, the Delhi Jal Board scam where no audit has been done for eight years… They have all spent time in jails over these scams. The police comes under the central government, but the civil administration is under the Delhi government. The police don’t act in a vacuum. They have to coordinate with civil authorities, the DM, the collectors, civilian officials… One of their MLAs is in jail today for active extortion… Tahir Hussain, who is contesting from another party now, was an AAP councillor, and was in jail for murdering an intelligence bureau officer. These are the criminals.

Why does the BJP not have a CM face in Delhi?

This is another example of the AAP-da trying to shift the narrative. Their former CM (Arvind Kejriwal) cannot be the CM because after spending many months in jail, he has been released under very stringent Supreme Court guidelines which are that he cannot the CM office and he cannot sign any files. Who will lead them?

The BJP is the world’s largest party, and anybody can rise to leadership position. Look at PM Modi. He started out as a tea seller but today, he’s a historic third-time PM. At the national level, you have the most popular leader. He is clearly a vote-catcher for us, and we all benefit from that. But at the state level we have collective leadership, and it has worked in Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, MP, and Odisha.

The top leadership of the BJP is here, from PM Modi, home minister Amit Shah to multiple CMs. Why does the party not have a strong Delhi BJP face?

We have plenty of strong Delhi BJP faces. We are truly the only pan-national party today. The Congress is no longer that. In fact, Congress is fighting for survival. In every state, of course, we will use our star political faces for campaigning.

AAP claims that all cases against them are false, and that the BJP is behind it.

The BJP did not arrest them, and the central government is not the one that denied them bail. Bail is decided by judges and courts and has nothing to do with the central government or the BJP. The norm is that bail is granted immediately and denied only when there is prima facie evidence and there’s a money trail. The fact that judges denied their many applications for bail for months indicates something is wrong.

Where does Congress stand in these elections? Why does the BJP think that the AAP and Congress are striking a deal behind the scenes?

AAP-da came to power by abusing Congress as well as other parties. They swore they would never ally with Congress, but they allied quickly. The Congress is no different. They made promises to the people of Himachal Pradesh and Karnataka, but they haven’t implemented them. They also hobnob with anti-national forces. In INDIA bloc, they don’t have a common ideology or a common leader, it’s a politics of convenience from time to time.