New Delhi.
The campaign war in New Delhi assembly election is going murkier by the day with BJP catching the eye of storm with its controversial advertisement allegedly targeting its potential rival Aam Aadmi Party’s Chief Arvind Kejriwal. AAP has lambasted BJP for using the cartoon based advertisement in which Kejriwal’s caste (‘gotra’ in the ad) was commented upon. The party said the BJP has backed off from its own version of playing positive campaign in the elections. The advertisement shows a cartoon of Kejriwal threatening to disrupt the Republic Day parade one year and asking for a VIP pass for the next year’s parade.The BJP ad uses the term “upadravi (nuisance causing) gotra”.
The ad did not go down well with Kejriwal who clarified, “I don’t sit on ‘dharnas’ for myself. The BJP targeted my children in their ad, but I kept quiet, didn’t react… the BJP has been launching personal attacks on me through their ads, but today they referred to the entire Agarwal Samaj as ‘Updravi’,” Kejriwal alleged.
AAP leader Ashutosh has demanded that the BJP withdraw the ad “within two hours and apologize or we will be forced to take action, will go to the EC.”
Kejriwal has in his campaigns described himself as a “baniya” to appeal to the trader community, seen as a traditional BJP votebank, of which Agarwals are a prominent part.
Last week, another BJP ad depicted Kejriwal’s children. It also showed Gandhian activist Anna Hazare in a framed photograph with a garland around it.
The AAP chief had tweeted then, “Nathuram Godse killed Gandhiji on this day in 1948. BJP has killed Anna in its ad today. Shudn’t BJP apologise?”
Senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley had stepped in and had the ad withdrawn. He reportedly also insisted that the BJP’s new aggressive campaign for the Delhi elections must be positive.
“If the Aam Aadmi Party is born out of politics of negativism then the BJP should not do the same. We have a lot of positives. The BJP should only do positive campaigning is my advice to the party,” he said to a TV channel.
