By PTI
LUCKNOW: Aam Aadmi Party national convenor Arvind Kejriwal begins his four-day Uttar Pradesh tour from Monday to drum up support for party candidates in the ongoing assembly polls, AAP office-bearers said.
Kejriwal, the Delhi chief minister, will begin the tour with an address at a public meeting in the state capital’s Qaisarbagh area, party spokesperson Vaibhav Maheshwari said.
“Kejriwal will also be visiting Barabanki and Prayagraj and Gorakhpur during the four-day visit and join various election-related programmes of the AAP,” Maheshwari said.
Kejriwal will be joined by the party’s Uttar Pradesh in-charge Sanjay Singh, and three-four MLAs from Delhi, where the party is in power, he added.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath will be contesting the assembly polls from Gorakhpur (Sadar) seat.
Meanwhile, the Delhi BJP on Sunday attacked Chief Minister and AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal, saying he has an “anti-nation mindset”, and accused him of “buying votes” by taking money from Khalistanis.
Kejriwal has been under attack from both the Congress and the BJP who have questioned him over former Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader and poet Kumar Vishwas’s accusations of he supporting separatists in Punjab, where voting for assembly polls was held on Sunday.
In a video, Vishwas also claimed that Kejriwal had spoken about becoming prime minister of a separate state.
Kejriwal has, however, termed the allegations as “laughable” and said he must be the “world’s sweetest terrorist” who builds schools and hospitals.
Addressing a gathering during a protest here, Delhi BJP chief Adesh Gupta said Kejriwal’s “low and anti-nation mindset” had come to the fore when he had staged a sit-in “opposing” the Republic Day parade.
In 2014, Kejriwal, while demonstrating against the Delhi Police and demanding safety for women, had staged a protest near Parliament and outside the Rail Bhawan.
He had also issued a threat of disrupting the Republic Day celebrations that year.
Gupta also said that the protest by the BJP against Kejriwal has entered its third day.
“The harsh truth is that he is buying votes by taking money from Khalistanis and agreeing with whatever they say. He now calls himself the sweetest terrorist and it is right as well because he included those in his AAP who were involved in the Delhi riots,” he said.
“Also, it was him who first supported the issue of referendum 2020 by Khalistani supporters in Punjab,” he said.
At the protest, BJP leader Vijay Goel claimed that Kejriwal is now even prepared to sell the country for his lust of power.
Leader of Opposition in the Delhi Assembly Ramvir Singh Bidhuri alleged that the education and health models that Kejriwal has been talking about for the past seven years are hollow.
“There is a shortage of 24,000 teachers in Delhi schools now and not a new school or college has been built during this period. Besides, he has thrown out 5,000 guest teachers from their jobs,” he claimed.