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Arvind Kejriwal meets Amit Shah at home. It is their first meeting
Arvind Kejriwal had sought an appointment to meet Home Minister Amit Shah right ahead of the Delhi elections to complain about what he called the deteriorating law and order situation in the national capital.
Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal met Home Minister Amit Shah at his Krishna Menon residence in national capital Delhi on Wednesday afternoon, his first stop for the courtesy calls on the central government leadership.
Soon after the meeting, the Delhi chief minister took to Twitter and said, “Met Hon’ble Home Minister Sh Amit Shah ji. Had a very good and fruitful meeting. Discussed several issues related to Delhi. Both of us agreed that we will work together for development of Delhi.”
This was their first one-on-one meeting ever in a formal setting, an AAP leader said. The meeting was scheduled for 3.15 pm, a Delhi government official said.
Arvind Kejriwal had sought an appointment to meet Home Minister Amit Shah right ahead of the Delhi elections to complain about what he called the deteriorating law and order situation in the national capital. That request wasn’t accepted by Shah’s office, given how it had been designed to take a jab. Amit Shah, after all, was fronting the Bharatiya Janata Party’s campaign in Delhi in an effort to edge out Kejriwal from the chief minister’s chair.
Amit Shah later acknowledged that his assessment of the Delhi elections had gone wrong but underscored that the BJP had succeeded in expanding its ideology through the polls, a reference to the increase in the BJP’s vote share.
Wednesday’s face-to-face meeting was also the first time that Kejriwal and Amit Shah talked to each other rather than at each other. Arvind Kejriwal had been Shah’s preferred punching bag through the election campaign. Kejriwal was unsparing in his rebuttals as well, accusing Shah of abusing his control over the police for petty conspiracies.
Kejriwal’s courtesy call - he wasn’t able to meet Amit Shah when he moved to the Home Ministry after last year’s national elections - is seen as a concerted effort to work together with the central government for the national capital.
Shah, and the home ministry that he leads, play a crucial role in Delhi affairs that is, legally, a Union Territory with a state assembly and heavily dependent on the Centre’s support.
