New Delhi: The Aam Aadmi Party on Monday finally staked claims to form a government in Delhi with outside support from the Congress. AAP National Convener Arvind Kejriwal will be the chief minister of the national capital. The swearing-in ceremony will be held at Ramleela Maidan and is most likely on December 26.
When asked about the chief ministership, Kejriwal said, "I never had any ambition to become the chief minister. I am here to serve the people. I want people's voice to be heard."
On the question of Congress saying its support is conditional, Kejriwal said, "I knew that. For us public is important, neither the BJP nor the Congress."
Kejriwal conveyed party's decision to Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung and said, " I just met the Lieutenant Governor. I have given him the letter that Delhi people want us to form the government. The Lieutenant Governor will give his proposal to the President."
The AAP had a spectacular debut in the polls winning 28 seats in the 70-member House took the decision after a meeting of the party's Political Affairs Committee on Monday morning in which the results of the referendum were discussed.
AAP arrived at the decision after 10 days of seeking public opinion through SMSes, web and jan sabhas. AAP received a total of 6,97,310 responses through its webs and SMS poll. After removing the duplicate IDs and numbers, a total of 5,23,183 votes were found to be geniune of which 2,65,966 were from Delhi. Out of the votes from Delhi a total of 1,97,086 people or around 74 per cent asked AAP to form a government in the national capital.
The party had sent letters to Congress President Sonia Gandhi and her BJP counterpart Rajnath Singh highlighting 18 issues and sought the party's response as both the parties were ready to support AAP from outside.
Former chief minister Sheila Dikshit congratulated AAP and wished the party good luck. She said, "I wished AAP good luck and now it is their turn to fulfil all the promises they made in their manifestos." She also clarified that it is not an unconditional support but an outside support to AAP.
Not leaving any chance to hit out at AAP, the single-largest party BJP accused AAP of political opportunism as it was ready to take Congress's support. Senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley said, "Political opportunism should have no place in alternative politics dictated by idealism. AAP may be concerned with the fact that many MLAs including the AAP MLAs do not want early polls. It may even be strategising on how to capture power, announce a few popular decisions and carve out a further positioning for itself. It has, therefore, decided to enact a farcical referendum. In effect, political opportunism is being masked with the idea of popular sanction behind it."
BJP which won 32 seats in the recently concluded elections did not stake claim to form a government and said it will sit in the opposition. BJP Delhi in-charge Nitin Gadkari said, "The party will not indulge in horse-trading. It will not take outside support and are ready for re-election."
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