Kejriwal govt wins confidence vote amid walkout by BJP legislators
New Delhi: The Delhi Assembly on Thursday passed the confidence motion tabled by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, which saw only AAP legislators vote while all eight BJP MLAs were either marshalled out or they voluntarily staged a walkout.
During a discussion on the confidence motion, Kejriwal also touched upon the CBI raids against his deputy Manish Sisodia and claimed after those searches, the AAP’s vote share in Gujarat had increased by four per cent and it would rise by another six per cent if the second-in-command gets arrested.
Calling Sisodia “fakkad-kangal” (pauper), Kejriwal said though the probe agency was “under pressure to arrest Sisodia”, it could not find anything substantial against him even after searching his official house and bank locker in his village.
After winning the confidence motion, the chief minister said he brought it only to prove to the country that the BJP cannot buy his MLAs and the saffron party’s ‘Operation Lotus’ had “failed” in Delhi.
The AAP has 62 MLAs in the 70-member assembly. The remaining eight belong to the BJP.
There was no vote against the confidence motion as all the AAP MLAs present in the House voted in its favour as expected.
The BJP’s Vijender Gupta, Abhay Verma and Mohan Singh Bisht were marshalled out following an argument with Deputy Speaker Rakhi Birla, who did not heed their demand to take up their calling attention notices before a discussion on the confidence motion. The remaining five walked out in protest.
Birla later adjourned the House sine die.
Participating in the discussion on the confidence motion, Kejriwal said, “We have 62 MLAs, of which the Speaker (Ram Niwas Goel) is in Canada, Naresh Balyan is in Australia and Satyendar Jain is in jail. The rest are here and you can count the numbers.”
Trying to project the AAP as an alternative to the BJP ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, Kejriwal said there are only two parties at the national level at present – “Kattar imaandar (hardcore honest) party and kattar be-imaan (hardcore corrupt) party”. “The Kattar be-imaan party believes in ‘dostwaad’ (friends), while the kattar imaandar party cares for this nation and believes in ‘Bharatwaad’. The kattar imaandar party wants to make India number one while the kattar be-imaan party wants to make its friends number one,” he stressed.
Claiming that the country wanted his party in power, Kejriwal said the “hardcore corrupt” party he was talking about lacked educated people while the “hardcore honest” party had those with good education and genuine Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) degrees.
The ‘hardcore corrupt’ party spends money to buy MLAs while the ‘hardcore honest’ party spends money on schools and hospitals, he added.
Laying out his plans for students, Kejriwal said both his children studied at the IIT and he wanted to provide the “same education to every child in India”.
Citing a study report released recently, the chief minister told reporters outside the Assembly that it considered Delhi the most unsafe place in the country for women.
“There should be no politics in law and order and safety of women in Delhi. We will extend all cooperation to the Lieutenant Governor and the Centre on this,” he said.
On LG Vinai Kumar Saxena warning of legal action against the AAP for levelling allegations of corruption against him, Kejriwal said, “We should welcome any probe if we are in public life.”
