Manoj Tiwari accuses Kejriwal of unfair poll campaign

A day before the Bawana bypoll, the BJP on Tuesday accused Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and the AAP of running an unfair election campaign.

"AAP and its leader Kejriwal are masters of the art of running dual and dubious election campaigns and levelling baseless allegations to malign characters of political opponents," Delhi Bharatiya Janata Party President Manoj Tiwari said at a press conference here.

He said the dubious campaign methods seen in the Bawana by-elections in the form of communal appeal posters on Monday or the Aam Aadmi Party Chandni Chowk legislator Alka Lamba's tweet with a "fake" TV survey showing AAP leading in the bypolls are a "continuity of Kejriwal's old games".

"Even in Goa and Punjab the Aam Aadmi Party tried similar tricks but failed," he said.

Tiwari, who represents the northeast constituency of Delhi in the Lok Sabha, also described the AAP's tactics of communal polarisation of Muslim votes as part of its "dirty tactics campaign brigade" headed by Kejriwal.

Tiwari said: "In both matters of Lamba's tweet and Hussain's posters, AAP has been exposed and face saving methods will not work for it in Bawana where a big defeat is assured for AAP."

Tiwari was referring to a poster which featured photos of AAP leader Imran Hussain and Kejriwal that was printed allegedly by the party's minority wing.

The poster stated: "Do you understand the pain of what happens if the votes of our community splits. Because the community vote split in Uttar Pradesh, see the kind of government that has come in the state. Nobody is there to listen to us."

Last week, Lamba tweeted a Hindi news channel survey report on the Bawana bypolls that claimed the AAP was heading for a win.

The BJP leader alleged that Kejriwal's political growth was based on the politics of allegations and lies.

"Be it the 2013 and 2015 Delhi assembly elections, the recent civic elections or even Delhi University elections, Kejriwal's party has resorted to plastering Delhi walls with bogus surveys and distorted picture posters," he said.

The AAP had on Monday filed a police complaint against "fake posters" circulated to defame Hussain and to instigate violence between the communities.

The AAP alleged in the complaint that some miscreants were "deliberately" circulating objectionable and communal posters -- which also carried the image of Hussain -- to malign the image of the party.

They also registered a complaint with the Election Commission in this connection.

In the same case, the BJP also approached the poll panel and registered a complaint against the AAP for distributing the pamphlets for creating "religious hatred" in the constituency.

--IANS

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