AAP, BJP leaders engage in war of words on Twitter

Taking a dig at the ‘main bhi chowkidar’ campaign, AAP convener and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday tweeted that people should vote for Prime Minister Narendra Modi if they want their children to become security guards.

In a war of words on Twitter on Wednesday, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) exchanged barbs over several issues including the BJP’s ‘main bhi chowkidar’ campaign and the Delhi government’s alleged reluctance in implementing the Ayushman Bharat health insurance scheme.

AAP, BJP leaders engage in war of words on Twitter (Photo by Sunil Ghosh / Hindustan Times)

Taking a dig at the ‘main bhi chowkidar’ campaign, AAP convener and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday tweeted that people should vote for Prime Minister Narendra Modi if they want their children to become security guards. The BJP, however, swiftly reacted to AAP chief’s comment and criticised him for belittling the profession. Kejriwal, in a tweet in Hindi, said, “If people want their children to become chowkidar, they should vote for Modi but if they want their child to get good education and become doctor, engineer or lawyer, they should vote for AAP.”

Union minister for housing and urban affairs Hardeep Singh Puri said it is a matter of perspective. “I agree that elections are here, but do not belittle a respectable profession this way. And yes, being a chowkidar is not only a hard working profession but is also a passion to protect the country from scams, theft and lies. It’s just a matter of perspective,” he said in a tweet in Hindi.

AAP senior leader and Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh, however, questioned the BJP how it allowed three businessmen to flee the country who are allegedly involved irregularities worth billions of rupees. “What kind of a chowkidar is this under whose watch Mehul Choksi, Vijay Mallya and Nirav Modi left the country after looting the country of thousands of crores of rupees...,” he tweeted.

In a tweet, Union finance minister Arun Jaitley said Delhi and West Bengal have refused to cooperate with the Central government over Ayushman Bharat scheme. “In democracy, elected governments are intended to cooperate with each other and work on the principle of ‘Bahujan Hitay Bahujan Sukhay’. The concept of Ayushman Bharat implemented by the Modi government is based on this principle. However, West Bengal, Delhi, Odisha refused to implement it,” he tweeted.