Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri.
| Photo Credit: file photo

With political campaigning for the February 5 Assembly election gathering steam in the Capital, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Sunday accused each other of not fulfilling pre-poll promises.

Senior BJP leader and Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri lashed out at AAP saying, “I am a citizen of Delhi. I was born here. If there is any city in the world that I love, it is Delhi,” and accused the ruling AAP of having “ruined the city”.

In response, AAP’s Rajya Sabha member Sanjay Singh said the BJP does not have the right to question AAP as it has not fulfilled any of its own poll assurances.

Addressing a press conference on Sunday, Mr. Puri, the Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas, drew a purported list of promises AAP made to the voters before the 2020 Delhi election and the 2022 Punjab poll.

“They [AAP] had promised 500 new schools [in Delhi], but till 2022, built only 65,” he said. The Minister went on to allege that the Delhi government had inflated the number of classrooms it claimed to have created in the Capital. “They claimed to have built 20,000 classrooms, but a 2020 report by the Central Vigilance Commission stated that the Delhi government was counting toilets as classrooms,” said the senior BJP leader.

‘What of ₹15 lakh?’

Hitting back, the AAP MP said, “Mr. Puri must clarify whether the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government has delivered on its promises to provide ₹15 lakh to every citizen, pucca houses to all, doubling farmers’ income, and creating two crore jobs every year.”

“In Punjab, we gave 300 units of free power, restored 30 canals, built excellent schools and hospitals, set up Mohalla Clinics, and gave 50,000 government jobs,” said Mr. Singh