If Shah rehabilitates the displaced slum dwellers there, I will not contest elections: Kejriwal
#News Bureau January 12,2025
Arvind Kejriwal on Sunday challenged Amit Shah that if the Home Minister does the job, he will not contest the elections. He said that if the central government withdraws all the cases related to the demolition of slums and gives an affidavit in the court that all the displaced people will be rehabilitated on their land from where they have been evicted, then he will not contest the Delhi elections.
Kejriwal alleged that if the BJP wins the assembly elections to be held on February 5, it will demolish the slums of the city. Calling himself the protector of slums, Kejriwal said that the BJP remembers the slum dwellers only at the time of elections.
Kejriwal’s remarks came a day after Union Home Minister Amit Shah accused him of building expensive toilets in his ‘Sheeshmahal’. Amit Shah had on Saturday alleged that the toilets in ‘Sheeshmahal’ were ‘more expensive than the entire slums of Delhi’.
The former Delhi CM was addressing the press after visiting slums in Delhi’s Shakur Basti area. Kejriwal also accused the BJP of ignoring slum dwellers for five years and then approaching them for votes only during elections.
He said, “We recently saw how BJP leaders spend the night in different slums. Why now? Why didn’t you come here 10 years ago to sleep at night? All this slum tourism is nothing but a drama to get votes. The BJP is a party of rich people. They consider slum dwellers as vermin. Do you think they are spending time here because they love the slum dwellers? No, they are showing love because they want your votes.’ he said,
Voting for BJP means signing your own suicide! BJP has made a plan to demolish all the slums and decide which slum land will be given to whom.
The AAP chief claimed, ‘If the slum dwellers vote for BJP, BJP will demolish all the slums within a year. BJP has rendered 3 lakh slum dwellers homeless.’
Kejriwal said, ‘BJP is not worried about the slum dwellers, but about the money of their friends! 10 years ago BJP tried to demolish the slums. I brought the officials here and did not let the slums be demolished. That day when they brought the bulldozers, a 6-year-old girl was killed in the chaos. BJP does not care about the lives of the slum dwellers.’
Standing outside Railway Camp in Shakur Basti constituency, he said that after the elections, the BJP will prioritise land over slum dwellers. He cited how the Lt Governor had changed the land use of the Shakur Basti slum area on December 7 to clear the shanties.
The former CM also accused the Railways of issuing tenders to demolish Railway Camp slums in September last year. “People here in Railway Camp are thinking they will get houses under the ‘Jahan Jhuggi Wahan Makaan’ scheme, whereas the BJP had come up with a detailed plan to clear this area three months ago. If you vote for them and make them win, they will make you homeless in less than two months,” Kejriwal warned.
Kejriwal said, ‘Yesterday in a program Shah called many slum dwellers and abused me. BJP says ‘Jahan jhuggi wahan makaan’. We also believe in this scheme. But Jahan jhuggi wahan kaise kamaye? For the slum dwellers? No. Jahan jhuggi wahan kaise kamaye, builders’ makaan. Everyone knows who they are.’
He said, ‘Withdraw all the cases you have filed against the slum dwellers and file an affidavit in the court that you will give houses to all those people on the same land where they used to live earlier… I will not contest the election. I challenge you, accept it. Otherwise, Kejriwal will not go anywhere, rather he will contest the election, win and stand like a pillar for the slum dwellers and will not let you demolish their houses.’
Kejriwal said that ‘BJP has built only 4000 houses for slum dwellers under the ‘Jahan Jhuggi Wahan Makaan’ scheme, while there are four lakh slums in Delhi. This shows that it will take BJP at least a thousand years to provide housing to all these people. The reality is that they have no intention of building houses for the poor. They are only considering building houses and commercial buildings for their rich friends in place of slums.’
According to government data, more than 30 lakh people live in 750 slums of Delhi, half of whom are registered voters and have significant influence on 20 assembly seats. In the 2020 assembly elections, about 61 percent of slum dwellers voted for AAP. In 2015, 66 percent of the poor voted for Arvind Kejriwal’s party, which won a record 67 out of 70 seats. This time elections for the 70-member Delhi Assembly will be held on February 5 and the counting of votes will be done on February ..