Union Minister and BJP leader Hardeep Puri, on Sunday, took a dig at
Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) national convener Arvind Kejriwal accusing him
of failing to deliver promises made during elections and diverting
attention from the questions regarding them.

Addressing a press conference here, Puri hit out at the AAP chief
drawing attention towards his party’s poll promises during the 2020
assembly elections of Delhi, and 2022 Punjab assembly polls, which he
said remained unfulfilled. “People come and make such statements and
when they are asked questions, they try to divert attention,” the
minister said.

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He said in 2022, Kejriwal promised to bring world-class achievements
in Punjab which he claimed to have achieved in Delhi and that Rs 1,000
per month would be given to the sisters of Punjab which has not been
fulfilled to date, the Union minister added.

He said despite the promise of the AAP chief to make Punjab drug-free
after the AAP government came to power in the state, the number of
drug lords have increased.

“Arvind Kejriwal is very well-known, I want to use the word commodity,
but I will say he is a very well-known politician. When he started his
political journey, there were some of us who were present at Ramlila
Maidan who truly understood that this was going to become a big
movement against corruption. We were also a little impressed by his
personality. He wears a muffler, sits in the front seat of Wagon R,
and swears that he will never join politics…”

Making a mention of the house to slum dwellers guaranteed by Kejriwal,
he said the Centre communicated to the Delhi government several times,
but they did not respond. Later, the Centre brought a law and things
were taken forward by the Central government even though the then
Kejriwal government did not cooperate in it.

On the expansion of the metro, Puri claimed that the state government
kept delaying their contribution, and even in the RRTS.

Similarly, talking about the promise of building new schools by the
state government, Puri said the AAP talks of education reform and
turning schools world-class while 2 lakh children are deprived of
education in Delhi, he added.

He alleged that they (the AAP) did not hire a single regular teacher
in the past ten years and kept claiming that there was a shortfall of
6,000 teachers in Delhi government schools, referring to a report.

Talking of the health infrastructure, specially Mohalla clinics, Puri
said the AAP is a testament to failure of the state government’s
health policy citing a news media report that many such clinics were
non-functional due to untimely closure due to acute staff shortage.