Shatrughan and Yashwant Sinha share stage with AAP at Noida rally

India वोट Kar | September 11, 2018

Shatrughan Sinha of the BJP and Yashwant Sinha, who has left the BJP, appeared alongside Aam Aadmi Party leaders at a rally in Noida on Saturday evening and spoke in support of the Delhi government. The rally, held in heavy rain, marked the end of a 250 kilometre padyatra by AAP leader Sanjay Singh and his team from Saharanpur to Noida, as both the AAP and the BJP prepare for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

What the speakers said

Shatrughan Sinha, who has criticised his own party before, told about 3,000 AAP supporters that he was willing to be called a rebel for backing the truth. He praised the Delhi government’s mohalla clinics and school reforms and said his party had promised “acche din” but had not delivered.

Yashwant Sinha questioned the Centre’s economic decisions, including demonetisation, GST and the Rafale fighter jet deal. Without naming anyone, he said an ego of the kind he described could not be accepted in the country’s highest political office. AAP national convener and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal later asked him to contest the polls from Uttar Pradesh; Sinha responded with a smile.

Kejriwal alleged that the BJP was siphoning money and that the Centre had stopped the Delhi government from opening new mohalla clinics for three years. He said Delhi already had 190 clinics, that 1,000 more were planned, and that power tariffs in the city were now the lowest in India.

BJP response

Delhi BJP general secretary Rajesh Bhatia said Kejriwal had lost ground and credibility and was now turning to leaders without any political base. “Kejriwal believes in politics of defection,” Bhatia said, adding that those who leave the BJP never prosper.