A day after Arvind Kejriwal quit as the chief minister of Delhi and said that his resignation is part of the party's fight to remove corruption from the country.
In an interview to CNN-IBN's editor-in-chief Rajdeep Sardesai, Kejriwal defended his 49-day old Delhi government, the decision to confront Delhi Police and the FIR against Reliance Industries chairman and managing director Mukesh Ambani.
When asked if AAP was trying to quit on Jan Lokpal bill and it was well-thought out pre-scripted exit for Lok Sabha elections, Kejriwal said it was not so. He said, "Which chief minister quits to do campaign for Lok Sabha elections. Modi has not left the post of CM for Lok Sabha campaigns. I too would have done such campaigns."
When asked about whether Lok Sabha elections was his next target he said, "AAP is not ready to find Lok Sabha elections. But the voters are ready. They want change, they want to fight the elections." On the issue of whether he intends to fight the Lok Sabha elections, Kejriwal said, "I'm not sure about fighting Lok Sabha elections. I don't wish to wish to fight the elections. I have no ambitions to become PM. The public will give us 50 seats in the Delhi this time."
The former Delhi CM also refuted charges that his government had failed on the issue of governance and had only taken part in confrontations. Kejriwal said, "Who would we have formed consensus with me? BJP or Congress? We can't form consensus with corrupt people. People keep saying we don't know governance. For five years Sheila Dikshit kept saying, I want to do an audit for discoms and we managed to do it in five days. In 65 years, no government has been able to get rid of corruption. Independent surveys have shown that in Delhi corruption has gone down. The biggest English newspaper says that in the transport department in Delhi all the dalals have disappeared. Government hospitals never had medicines, they are now easily available. And they say we don't know any governance."
Arvind Kejriwal says he has no ambitions to be PM.
On the issue of registering an FIR against Ambani, Kejriwal insisted that it was not a political strategy to grab media headlines. "When I registered an FIR against Ambani, they ask me not do this, do governance. Isn't governance taking on the corrupt as well? From 1 April, the gas prices are going to rise in India. If gas prices go up, CNG prices, electricity, fertilisers prices will all up. It will affect the economy badly."
He also insisted that the party's popularity has not gone down. "Our popularity has not gone down, it has increased with the middle class. It has however gone down with the media," the former Delhi chief minister said.
However, Kejriwal also admitted that the party should not have called the Lt Governor as politically motivated.
On the issue of former Delhi law minister Somnath Bharti, he said, "The way the issue was reported, even we felt that he had done something wrong. Our party even called a meeting and we were ready to ask him to resign. However, we looked at all the tapes and video recordings from the night of the incident and realised he had done nothing wrong. However he did make two wrong statements. The one that he said he would spit on Jaitley and the other on media being paid by Modi was wrong, and we told him that he was wrong."
Watch full video interview below:
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