Rajkot: In a blistering broadside that reverberated across Gujarat’s political landscape, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) supremo Arvind Kejriwal declared his party’s exit from the INDIA alliance on Tuesday, positioning AAP as the sole beacon of hope for a state long shackled by what he termed the “joint business” of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Congress.
Speaking at a charged press conference here during his three-day whirlwind tour, Kejriwal likened the BJP’s hubris to the mythical arrogance of Ravana and Kansa, vowing to dismantle their 30-year stranglehold on power.
Kejriwal’s ire was most palpable over the Gujarat government’s alleged brutality towards protesting farmers. Barred from meeting jailed AAP workers and farmers in Rajkot jail – a denial he compared to British colonial cruelties against Bhagat Singh – the Delhi Chief Minister decried the “tyranny worse than the Raj”. He spotlighted the October arrests of 88 farmers and AAP leaders in Botad district over a peaceful stir against untimely seed and fertiliser supplies. “Innocent homes raided, families torn apart, false FIRs slapped – and even water denied for 24 hours in custody,” Kejriwal thundered, saluting the resilience of affected kin he met amid BJP pressure. With 46 still behind bars, he warned, “This is no governance; it’s an assault on the spirit of our freedom struggle.”
The assault extended to Gujarat’s youth, whom Kejriwal accused the regime of dooming through rampant paper leaks and joblessness. “Farmers borrow to educate their children, only for exams to be rigged without consequence,” he fumed, linking it to a deliberate drug proliferation that “ruins every family” to muzzle dissent. “Drugs flood streets from Kutch to Saurashtra – all to silence the voiceless,” he charged, demanding accountability.
Kejriwal didn’t spare national embarrassments, slamming the IndiGo Airlines fiasco as a “shameful spectacle” of governmental incompetence or complicity, where a private firm held the nation to ransom. “Parliament debates trivia while crises fester,” he lamented, urging Gujaratis to rally behind AAP for a “common people’s government” that would quash bogus cases in 24 hours and jail errant ministers.