AAP slams Centre over no clearance for Kejriwal's Denmark visit

Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Sanjay Singh on Tuesday hit out at the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led Central government over no clearance from the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) for Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's visit to Denmark for the C40 Climate Summit.

"This is unfortunate and beyond my understanding that why Modi Ji's government is working with such hostility towards us," he said while speaking to ANI.

"It was not Arvind Kejriwal's personal visit, he was not going for some fun but to explain to Asia's 100 city mayors, how the pollution of Delhi was reduced by 25 per cent. He was going to explain the benefit of 'odd-even' on the pollution of Delhi. Good image of country would have been presented there," he added.

"You have made the entire system a joke. His scheduled talks with four mayors and even Michael Bloomberg were cancelled. What was its benefit?" he remarked, questioning the number of visits by Chief Ministers that have been cancelled in the past in the same way.

"Why is there so much hostility against us? Is Kejriwal's only crime that he was elected by people of the country. Modi government have tarnished the image of the country. What message did it give it to those countries? Is this how the federal structure works? This is not good for democracy or for a federal structure," Singh said.

On October 4, MEA had refused to comment on clearance to the Delhi Chief Minister for visiting and speaking at the C40 summit and stated that it does not comment on individual requests.

Replying to a question regarding the situation, MEA Spokesperson Raveesh Kumar had said, "Normally I do not answer any query on specific political clearance. We get hundreds of requests for political clearance every month from Ministers, Secretaries, and Bureaucrats.