April 11, 2014
In his first admission that his decision to quit as Delhi chief minister had gone wrong, Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal told ET he mistimed the decision to resign, and that mistake meant AAP suffers a communication gap with the people. He said that AAP will have to be more careful in future.
April 11, 2014
In his first admission that his decision to quit as Delhi chief minister had gone wrong, Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal told ET he mistimed the decision to resign, and that mistake meant AAP suffers a communication gap with the people. He said that AAP will have to be more careful in future.
Kejriwal admits impulsive exit in Delhi was a mistake
However, he defended the decision to quit in principal. ET spoke to Kejriwal as he and his team were en route Amritsar for campaigning. Excerpts:
How many AAP candidates will make it to Parliament?
"We are not targeting a number. What I can say is that we will win the two seats which will change the political discourse of the country, which are Amethi and Varanasi. If BJP wins over 200 seats, but loses Varanasi, do you think that victory will hold any meaning for the party? Similarly, Congress loss in Amethi will spell doom for its leadership even if it manages to emerge as the single largest party. As for the BJP, I am confident that it will get less than 180 seats. I've tried all kind of permutation and combination. Modi is definitely not becoming PM. The 2014 will throw up a fractured mandate and we will have re-elections in a year.
How did you arrive at the 180 figure for the BJP?
I have had many conversations with senior journalists recently. Based on these conversations, I tried calculating the number of seats BJP can manage from different states. The most optimistic figure for them is 180 seats.
In hindsight, was quitting the Delhi government a mistake?
I don't regret forming the government and quitting on principle. Those decisions were right. The mistake we made was to assume that the people will celebrate our decision to quit on principle. We thought that people would understand our reasons on their own. But it did not happen. There was a communication gap and that gap was filled by BJP and Congress who told people that we ran away from responsibility. We should not have quit government the same day BJP and Congress blocked the passage of the Jan Lokpal Bill. We should have waited for a few days, held public meetings to explain the rationale behind our decision. We quit suddenly and people could not understand why we did it. It was perceived negatively. We made a mistake on the communication front and we'll have to be more careful in future.
Would you agree you have lost the support of the middle class?
"There are two categories of people who have been disappointed with AAP's resignation from government. The first category is made up of our staunch supporters who acknowledge our work in government and will continue to vote for us. The second category is of people who want Arvind Kejriwal for CM and Modi for PM. People in this category could not handle the fact that I took Modi on directly and these people are very angry with me. We'll never get these supporters back, but this is a very small chunk.
You had initially disagreed with your party's stand to field as many candidates as possible in the upcoming elections. AAP has fielded close to 450 candidates. What made you change your mind?
This is an election being fought by the people of this country. Who am I to decide how many candidates we should field? Our job as a party to make as many candidates contest and let the people decide whether they want us or not.
You attacked Modi on his stand on FDI in retail. BJP has opposed it in its manifesto recently. Your comment.
BJP has lied in its manifesto. Modi is for FDI in retail and he will introduce it. Just wait and watch. At a recent meeting of traders, he said that they should not fear competition from abroad.
What concerns you about BJP's PM candidate?
He is not any different from Manmohan Singh. He is part of the same system that sucks the blood of our population to benefit a handful of people. The system has to change.
You have been largely silent on Gujarat riots. Why?
Modi is more dangerous than other leaders in the electoral fray because of his history with Gujarat riots. But that's a known fact. I speak more often about his development record because the supposed Modi wave is because of that. I want to bust that myth.
Your comment on Modi's delcaration about his wife…
It's a personal matter and I don't want to say much. But it's sad on two counts. Firstly, I wonder what that woman must have gone through for all these years, when she wasn't accepted by her husband. Second, Why did Modi hide this fact about his life?
Courtesy: PTI
