New Delhi [India], January 9 : Hitting out at the Aam Aadmi Party national convenor Arvind Kejriwal ahead of the Delhi Assembly Elections, Bharatiya Janata Party candidate Parvesh Verma said that the former Chief Minister never visited any village and didn't allow any villager of Delhi to enter his 'Sheesh Mahal'.
Attacking the AAP government further, Verma claimed that Kejriwal raked the issue of the Jat reservation because he realised that rural Delhi was voting against him.
"This is the same Arvind Kejriwal who used to say that people in villages of Delhi stink. This is the same Arvind Kejriwal who never allowed people from even one village of Delhi to enter his 'Sheesh Mahal.' This is the same Arvind Kejriwal who never visited any village to date over any issue," Parvesh Verma said.
Verma, who has been fielded against AAP supremo Kejriwal from the New Delhi constituency, further exuded confidence in winning the assembly polls
"Today, he felt that the entire rural Delhi was voting against AAP--rural Delhi included not just Jats but also Gujjars, Yadavs, Tyagis and Rajputs, all of them saying in unison that they have to uproot the Arvind Kejriwal government," the BJP leader said.
He added, "We will form our government in Delhi this time. Today, he remembered the Jats. Had they done anything for the Jats, they need not have remembered Jats just 25 days before elections."
The Delhi assembly polls will be held in a single phase on February 5 and the counting of votes will take place on February 8.
The last date for filing nominations is January 17. The date for scrutiny of nominations is January 18. The last date for withdrawal of candidature is January 20.
Earlier in the day, Arvind Kejriwal said that the Delhi assembly elections will be a "direct contest" between the AAP and the BJP and not an election of the INDIA alliance.
"The Delhi assembly election is between AAP and the BJP. It is not the election of the INDIA alliance. I wholeheartedly express my gratitude to all those parties for supporting us. Mamata Banerjee is supporting us. Akhilesh Yadav is supporting us. I have learnt through media that the (Uddhav) Thackeray ji's party is supporting us," Kejriwal told reporters here on Thursday.
The Congress, which was in power for 15 consecutive years in Delhi, has suffered setbacks in the last two assembly elections and has failed to win any seat. In contrast, the AAP dominated the 2020 assembly elections by winning 62 out of 70 seats while the BJP got only eight seats.