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After a six hour wait on the last day, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal managed to file his nominations for Delhi elections late on Tuesday evening. His Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) alleged there was a conspiracy by the BJP to prevent Kejriwal from contesting the elections.
Kejriwal walked out of the Jamnagar House in the evening after waiting since the afternoon as over 66 candidates suddenly arrived to file their nominations. “BJP planted 45 people in the line before Arvind Kejriwal. The Election Commission is deliberately giving each candidate half an hour or one hour, even those whose papers are not complete or those who don’t have proposers,” said Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia.
“BJP people, do whatever you want, you cannot stop Kejriwal from filing his nomination or from becoming Chief Minister for the third time. Your conspiracy will not succeed,” said Sisodia.
Kejriwal had begun the process by leading a roadshow on Monday which stretched on because of the large crowds which gathered while he was speaking. The EC procedures allows filing of nominations till 3 pm but candidates who have collected their tokens before the deadline are allowed to complete the process. Kejriwal had collected his token on Tuesday afternoon but a surprising number of candidates turned up at the same time.
“Waiting to file my nomination. My token no is 45. There are many people here to file nomination papers. Am so glad so many people participating in democracy,” Kejriwal said. AAP MLA Saurabh Bharadwaj alleged that around 35 candidates were sitting at the office along with the chief minister without proper nomination papers or even the stipulated number of 10 proposers. “They (candidates) are insisting unless their papers are complete and they file their nominations, they won’t allow CM to file nomination,” he said.
Responding to Bhardwaj’s tweet, Kejriwal said it does not matter as many of them are filing their nominations for the first time. “Doesn’t matter. Many of them are filing for the first time. They are bound to make mistakes. We also made mistakes the first time. We should handhold them. I am enjoying waiting with them. They are all part of my family,” Kejriwal tweeted.
Delhi goes to polls on February 8 and counting will take place on February 11. BJP has fielded Sunil Yadav while Congress has fielded Romesh Sabharwal.
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