E-Paper
Will make Delhi cleanest city, if voted to power again: CM
Addressing his first town hall in New Delhi’s Constitution Club, the chief minister said that in its next tenure, his party might look at the possibility of extending its existing scheme on free rides for women in public buses to other groups — like the elderly of the city — too.
Delhi’s chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Thursday promised to focus on making Delhi one of the cleanest cities of the world if the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is voted to power in the 2020 Assembly elections.
Addressing his first town hall in New Delhi’s Constitution Club, the chief minister said that in its next tenure, his party might look at the possibility of extending its existing scheme on free rides for women in public buses to other groups — like the elderly of the city — too.
In the run-up to Assembly polls, chief minister Kejriwal, who is also the AAP’s national convener, is scheduled to address seven such town hall meetings till January 7 – one in each of Delhi’s seven Lok Sabha constituencies. In the same period, the party will also engage in a door-to-door campaign and organise 700 mohalla sabhas, they said in a statement.
The idea of holding town hall meetings, which comprise of long question-and-answer sessions with the chief minister, was proposed by poll campaign strategist Prashant Kishor’s
agency I-PAC, with which the AAP has joined hands for its current campaign.
Kishor had conceptualised similar public meetings for poll campaigns of Punjab chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh, who was elected in 2017, and Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar, who was elected in 2015, said a senior functionary who is involved in formulating the party’s campaign strategies.
“In our current tenure, we prioritised issues such as education, health care, access to water, electricity and sewer. For our next tenure, the first target will be cleanliness in Delhi. There will be no overloaded garbage dumps, the three mountain-like landfills will be gone, roads and alleys will be clean,” said Kejriwal, responding to a query by a person who attended Thursday’s event.
Responding to another question on extending the current scheme on free bus rides
for women to cover elderly citizen, he said his government is open to the possibility in its next tenure.
The event started with Kejriwal reading out his government’s achievements – in sectors such as education, health care, development, women security, power and water – from a “report card” that was released earlier this week.
Copies of the report card were shared with the visitors – around 1,000 of who had come from several assembly segments, accompanied by their MLAs. The audience in the packed auditorium – which comprised both men and women, youngsters and elderly residents – shouted slogans, often repeating the party’s new
campaign slogan — ‘Achhe beetein paanch saal, lage raho Kejriwal’.
In Thursday’s event, Kejriwal answered nine questions. The queries ranged from subjects related to access to clean water, women security, ownership rights in unauthorised colonies, free bus scheme, Delhi’s economy and concerns related to increased penalty for traffic violations under the amended Motor Vehicles Act.
Two questions were asked through videos posted in the party’s social media handles and the others through chits, which the chief minister picked from a bowl placed on the stage. In the help desks set up outside the auditorium, visitors were asked to write their questions on a piece of paper, in case they had any, said Preeti Sharma Menon, the party’s national executive member.
“The news of the town hall was widely spread through WhatsApp groups and social media handles,” said Sudhir Patel, member of the social media team of the party’s office in Patel
Nagar assembly segment, who was one of the visitors in Thursday’s town hall.
Another visitor, Sunil Gupta, a resident of Karol Bagh assembly segment, said, “The event was very organised. We had buses arranged for visitors from all major junctions in each [assembly] constituency in New Delhi.”
Kejriwal had to stop his speech briefly and pull up a group of volunteers who were cheering for a particular MLA. “This is not right. We are here to talk about changing the nation for good, and not for discussing who is to be given a party ticket,” said Kejriwal, addressing a group in the audience that was shouting slogans in support of the party’s Delhi Cantonment MLA Surender Singh, popularly known as Commando, often interrupting the speech by the Delhi chief minister.
The chief minister’s remark came seconds after the group in the audience defied requests of the moderator of the event asking them to keep the sloganeering to a minimum at least during the duration of Kejriwal’s speech.
“The chief minister was being interrupted. It was a natural reaction. Such things keep happening in such events,” said MLA Surender Singh.
