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Humbled after losing all seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi and facing heat from some its own MLAs as well as the people of Delhi, AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday apologised for resigning as Chief Minister and called for fresh Assembly polls.
“After considering all aspects, I apologise to the people, who wanted the AAP government in Delhi to continue. Our party wanted to know the reasons for the anger of the people against us and we were told that during 49 days in office, the AAP government had reduced the power tariffs by half, provided free water and corruption in public dealing had disappeared..People wanted this relief to continue,” Kejriwal said in a statement.
He reiterated that the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government, which had failed to get a majority in the Delhi Assembly by winning 28 out 70 seats in the House, had resigned “on moral grounds after our government’s proposal to introduce the Jan Lokpal Bill was defeated, but our decision was misinterpreted. Therefore, we apologise to the people for this judgmental error…which gave our political opponents an opportunity to spread misinformation about us.”
Incidentally, AAP stood second in all seven seats in Delhi, all of which were bagged by the Bharatiya Janata Party.
Kejriwal accepted that during the Lok Sabha campaign, AAP realised that a large number of people were angry over them quitting the Delhi government, which had impacted its poll prospects in many States, barring Punjab, where it made a debut and won four Lok Sabha seats.
The AAP Government had resigned on February 14, after which President’s rule was imposed in Delhi. Following this, some of its decisions, such as slashing electricity tariffs by 50 per cent and free water up to 700 litres were reversed.
Kejriwal said he had written a letter to the Lieutenant Governor of Delhi on May 20, requesting him to put on hold the decision to dissolve the Delhi Assembly for a week, since AAP wanted to seek the opinion of the people on whether they want a government in Delhi or prefer fresh elections.
“However, given the way political developments have been taking shape, particularly the recent developments (the clear mandate to BJP in the centre), it has now become clear that the possibility of providing a fresh government to the people of Delhi appear to be negligible," said the statement, adding that the party did not feel the need of holding any referendum and would opt for fresh polls.
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