AAP named 'corrupt politicians' for four reasons: Kejriwal

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said in comments published Sunday in a Pakistani newspaper that the AAP targeted "corrupt politicians" for four reasons.

"There are four reasons," Kejriwal was quoted by the Dawn as telling a group of Pakistani journalists who called on him.

"We are against corruption among politicians," he said, listing the reasons.

"We are against their criminalization," he added. "We are against their commercialization. And we are also against dynastic politics."

Addressing a party conference Friday, the Aam Aadmi Party founder listed several leading Indian poliiticians as corrupt and said they should be defeated in the coming Lok Sabha election.

Kejriwal said what piqued him most was the reluctance of successive governments in India to weed out corruption, the daily quoted him as saying.

"The first anti-graft bill was introduced in India in 1968, the year I was born. Then nothing - really nothing - was done to take up that legislation.

"It took the central government 40 years to pass the law.

"We will pass the anti-corruption law Feb 16 though our government was formed in Delhi only Dec 28 last year," he said "in a brief but animated conversation".

The Dawn report said that even provincial Pakistani bureaucrats "occupy bigger and more lavish offices than the one out of which operates Kejriwal.

"No golden nameplate adorns the door of his third floor office in the Delhi secretariat. A functional, almost nondescript, number plate (A-301) is affixed to the top of the door."

The Dawn said that when the Pakistani journalists congratulated him on the AAP's success in Delhi, Kejriwal responded: "Sab Allah ka shukar hai. Hum to bahut chhotay log hain." (All the success is due to Allah's blessings. We are very small people.")

Kejriwal, however, politely declined to comment on India-Pakistan relations.

Asked for his views on the India-Pakistan peace process, he said: "I have never visited Pakistan. I have not studied India's relations with Pakistan.

"But I want India to have peaceful relations with all the countries."

Pressed to say "some more insightful - more newsy - on India-Pakistan relations", Kejriwal said: "To be honest, it is really outside my remit. You should ask the central government."