Nothing exceptional in AAP’s schemes, Punjab does it better: Capt Amarinder Singh

Punjab chief minister and senior Congress leader Captain Amarinder Singh on Monday said that Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal was not doing anything exceptional by providing

Punjab chief minister and senior Congress leader Captain Amarinder Singh on Monday said that Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal was not doing anything exceptional by providing power subsidies and setting up subsidised healthcare units. He also said that while the AAP was boasting about providing cheap power to Delhiites, a better scheme was already in-place in Punjab.

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Singh on Monday began his three-day campaign for the Congress in the national capital. He held two public meetings, one in west Delhi’s Hari Nagar for Congress candidate Surinder Setia and the other in south Delhi’s Kalkaji constituency for candidate Shivani Chopra.

Explaining the power subsidy scheme in Punjab, Singh said, “Kejriwal is giving subsidy on power to only a section of residential consumers and spending ₹1,600 to ₹1,700 crore on it, while my government spends ₹9,000 to ₹10,000 crore on electricity subsidies to all sections of the society.”

According to party estimates both these constituencies have a sizable population of Punjabi voters.

He added, “In Punjab, we subsidise power to 21 lakh domestic consumers belonging to schedule caste, backward class and poor families, 14 lakh agriculture and 1.50 lakh industrial consumers. This means that we spend nearly ₹10,000 crores every year.”

He also questioned the AAP government on their work done in the fields of employment generation and economic growth of the Capital.

“Some people will surely be happy with these freebies, but what has he (Kejriwal) really done for development and the progress of Delhi? What has he done for creating jobs for your children,” he asked.

Singh also hit out at the BJP for polarising the elections alleging that this was done because they did not have any concrete plan to offer to Delhiites.

He said that the entire nation has become Shaheen Bagh—where protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act and the National Register of Citizens (NRC) are on for the last 53 days—because such demonstrations were happening across the country.

“They are attempting to polarise the elections using Shaheen Bagh but people are now seeing through their strategy,” Singh said.

Tejaswi Yadav campaigns in Vikaspuri

The Congress on Monday organised a ‘Purvanchal Sammelan’ in the Vikaspuri assembly constituency, where Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Tejaswi Yadav urged the voters to support the Congress-RJD alliance in the February 8 Delhi polls.

Addressing a crowd of around 500 voters in the chhath ghat Vikaspuri’s Jai Vihar, Yadav said, “Lade keba, kare keba, jeete keba (we’ll fight, we’ll work, we’ll win).”

Supporting Congress’s Vikaspuri candidate strongman Mukesh Sharma and Uttam Nagar’s RJD candidate Shakti Kumar Bishnoi, Yadav said that he was confident that the Congress-RJD alliance will win with a “landslide” margin. He said that Delhi will be a repeat of Jharkhand, where the Congress, RJD and Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), defeated the BJP to form the government.

“Our Purvanchali brothers kept asking us to enter Delhi politics and fight the elections here. I am glad that we are finally debuting with the Congress,” he said.

He attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led BJP government and said that Prime Minister did not leave up to his promises.