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Delhi Elections 2020 - ‘We will focus on damage done to Delhi in the past few years’: Hardeep Singh Puri
“Unlike AAP, which is a single-pole tent Kejriwal. We have a rich line-up of people who have a lot of experience in Delhi,” said Union minister Hardeep Singh Puri on being asked about BJP’s face in Delhi polls.
Union minister of housing and urban affairs and civil aviation, Hardeep Singh Puri, spoke to Anisha Dutta about the Bharatiya Janata Party’s election plan for the February 8 Delhi assembly elections, the violence at Jawaharlal Nehru University and the Citizenship Amendment Act protests.
Edited excerpts:
What is the BJP’s big plan for Delhi? What is it going to focus on in its manifesto?
A political party, which is also the party at power at the Centre, has great ambitions for the capital city and those will be spelt out in the party manifesto. But I can tell you we are approaching this election with a clear vision about the damage that has been done to the city in the past few years; I refer to the period of AAP and the neglect that Delhi has been subjected to during the Congress regime. If you look at Delhi dispassionately, you come across various things staring at you in the face; rising population, a crumbling infrastructure in terms of housing for the people and the needs of the city.
At the Hindustan Times leadership summit, Arvind Kejriwal said they have managed to change the BJP’s electoral issues from ‘Hindu-vs Muslim’ and caste in other states to development in Delhi. He said when it comes to Delhi now, BJP has to discuss development.
That BJP has become development-oriented? First of all he’s in a good habit of wanting to change everything. He wants claim credit for everything. He wanted to claim credit on unauthorised colonies; he and the Congress sat on it for 11 years. First of all to say the BJP gives this ‘Hindu-Muslim’ or ‘Jat or non-Jat in Haryana election’ narrative is a little childish on his part. How did we win the last election? We won by more than 300 seats because we had the fruits of development to show. You take all our schemes. I came on record earlier, when I was asked before the 2019 elections on how many seats will the BJP get and I had said more than 300. Why did I say that? We are a party of 11 crore karyakartas (workers), ..if you count the beneficiaries of all of PM’s schemes, they were around 22 crore and how many votes did we get in 2019? It was 22 crore. I’m not saying every beneficiary voted for us but at the same time can’t say there is no correlation.
One argument given by AAP is that both BJP and Congress don’t have a face; they have a campaign over ‘Kejriwal vs who’?
It’s not that they don’t have a face. The counter quite simply is that the BJP is conducting a campaign based on the development work it has done in the country and what it has done in Delhi. At the appropriate time, the BJP will declare its candidate.
But the elections are less than a month away...
Well, the BJP may declare it after the elections. It is entirely the BJP’s prerogative. Unlike AAP, which is a single-pole tent Kejriwal. We have a rich line-up of people who have a lot of experience in Delhi.
Such as yourself?
No...no, that question is not there. Mr (Manoj) Tiwari is the president of BJP in Delhi and his name has been mentioned and we have the leader of opposition in the Delhi Assembly, Vijendra Gupta, whose name has been mentioned. We have Dr Harshvardhan, who’s a senior member of the party who has been elected many times and holds important portfolios. Mr Vijay Goel is also there. We can mention several others. I’ll say that every party reserves the right to decide when and how it wants to designate a leader.
There are arguments both for and against the need to declare a name. In the past sometimes, when we have declared a leader, the party leadership at that point of time felt that they could have been better off without it.
Are you referring to the Kiran Bedi fiasco?
A: I am not referring to anyone in particular but even earlier other than that we have not been in power in Delhi for 22 years. But what has happened is after we won the 2014 election, we lost only once in 2015 but after that every election, it’s been a clean sweep in BJP’s favour.
There is a war of words between BJP, Congress and AAP on Twitter over a video AAP posted. BJP’s handle tweeted out a video where it shows the Delhi CM and Kanhaiya Kumar with chants of “Bharat tere tukde tukde honge” in the background. What is this ‘tukde tukde gang’ narrative that BJP uses with JNU?
I will look at it differently, it’s not that BJP is building on that. I went to Delhi University and I’m a very proud alumni, I went to Hindu College and then taught in St Stephen’s for a year. There is no harm in protesting, even you and I should also. Disagreement, nuanced argument, that is central to a democracy but what is it that you are raising by virtue of a slogan? What is the nature of protest, is it okay for anyone to pick up a brick and break the windows of a bus over disagreement? DU has certain standing at a national level and JNU also does. In JNU there is an internal and structural issue on a very basic thing; fee, hostel charges, etc. I am appalled that elected representatives, who hold any position, could go into the data room of the university or break the server because they didn’t want other students to register.
Action invites reactions and there are reprisals. But I want to stay away from that. But all I want to say is that if you have a problem the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, lets analyse the act. There is some imaginary link being drawn between CAA and National Population Register(NPR) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC). It was never intended as that. The CAA performs a very limited function, which is those prosecuted minorities who seek shelter from countries that are theocracies and Islamic Republic and came here before December 31, 2014, not anyone new who came in. Those people who hid their identity because they thought they will be on the wrong side of the system and get repatriated. It’s an amendment for those people. No one’s citizenship is being taken away.
Over the last six years, we have given shelter to about 600 people who belong to the Islamic faith. If anyone comes today, the same traditional 7,000 year-old civilisational value system will never return anybody. If a person is a prosecuted minority, they will be given shelter.
But one counter argument is why not include prosecuted minorities like Rohingyas of Myanmar, Baloch of Pakistan & Afghanistan and Tamils of Sri Lanka?
Because for a simple reason that we are dealing with a situation prior to 2014. Secondly, we have enough literature on Rohingyas in terms of Myanmar, Bangladesh, etc,. And by the way, Rohingyas have come in by the hundreds and thousands. India’s credentials for tolerance and for accommodating people who are fleeing prosecution, this was a small amendment proposed in 2015 and hence the cut-off date is 2014. I personally think there is an element of misleading involved but more than that, it is treacherous. They (opposition) are utilising this for mobilisation of support but I think it is going to boomerang badly on them. The actual people who are affected by this aren’t there. You can raise a hue and cry about it. I belong to the way of thinking that anybody who wants to express themselves must be allowed to express themselves. I am only drawing a line on two things -- please be responsible in your discourse and don’t resort to violence. Resources in a democracy are scarce. You can’t say I am allowed to protest but I can break down the server or that I may burn a bus. And also, are some of these people even students? I can understand people passing out the age of 19-22, some may even take a little longer. When one perpetually holds up in one place, that is odd.
Since you mentioned education is a fundamental right. The students of JNU were protesting over a fee hike. What do you think about their right to do so?
Yes, the protest is on fee hike. Can you say that it’s my right but you need to make it free? You have the right to ask for it but your ability to extract that from the state will depend on the resources. I think the government’s line is very clear. They want to sit down and talk to the people.
Various reports, however, claim the police had not taken sufficient action and the college administration, including the VC, did not stop the violence on time.
I would take all these reports not with a pinch but a bag of salt. In so far as the police are concerned, you faulted them for going inside the campus in Jamia Milia Islamia.
In the case of Jamia, the police had given a statement that the students were not involved in vandalism.
There is an enquiry here also and hopefully we will get the facts. Irrespective of who these miscreants are and [from] whichever party. Both those people [and the ones] who broke the server the first day. There are very disturbing videos that I saw of a students’ union leader actually leading a mob. Though they say that mob wasn’t wielding sticks, that is not the issue. It’s very sad, I think people are reversing their roles. I think that [among the] left-leaning, some are far more extremist in their ideology, this illiberal streak is evident. If you don’t like somebody don’t let them speak, heckle them, etc, This is not consistent with the essential core of a democracy.
But there were also videos of how the masked mob attacked the students.
There are some who have been identified, if there has been dereliction of duty and miscarriage of justice, by all means take action against them but let’s get the facts correct. I was a little amazed that when the violence was going on, all the parties, including AAP and Congress, claimed to know who the miscreants were. Let the enquiry report come and let’s find out who did it.
