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Fresh row between AAP-BJP as poll season in

Last Updated 17 December 2018, 16:50 IST

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Sunday took the battle to NDA’s home turf by writing letters to his counterparts in the BJP and NDA-ruled states, asking them to meet the PM and apprise him about the "dangers" of the proposed amendments to the Electricity Act, 2003.

Union Minister Vijay Goel trained guns on Kejriwal for not reducing value-added tax (VAT) on petrol and diesel even as BJP governments followed by a matching cut after the Centre reduced the tax on oil by Rs 2.5 on Friday.

And the spat was marked by high drama this time with Goel taking out a bullock cart rally in protest that from the iconic Red Fort and concluded at the busy trade centre of Delhi Sadar Bazar.

As people walked alongside the minister's cart holding placards and raising slogans in his support, the minister asked the Kejriwal government to “resign” on the issue.

Seeking to contrast the response of BJP chief ministers with that of Kejriwal, he said the Modi government cares for the people while the Kejriwal government "wants to kill people".

Another issue, which sparked off fire between the BJP and the AAP is funding to the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD). Reacting sharply to Kejriwal’s charge that the central government was not allocating adequate money for MCDs, Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari tweeted “Kejriwal will not get a place even in the hell” and accused him of engaging in “obnoxious conspiracy”.

Kejriwal was quick to counter Tiwari’s remarks in which the latter said that the Delhi CM does not have to be concerned but only transfer the Rs 10,000 crore fund for MCD sent by the Centre.

Kejriwal responded saying the BJP government should send this money directly into the MCD account and not through the Delhi government.

On the proposed amendments in the electricity bill, Kejriwal wrote letter to chief ministers of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Manipur, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Tripura, Bihar, Nagaland and Meghalaya.

He alleged that the Modi government was doing this “just to benefit some power companies”.

The row was building up for the past few days. Kejriwal also plans to travel to different states from next week to meet Opposition chief ministers Mamata Banerjee (West Bengal), N Chandrababu Naidu (Andhra Pradesh), Pinarayi Vijayan (Kerala) and H D Kumaraswamy (Karnataka), to build consensus against the proposed amendments to the Electricity Act.

The AAP has ratcheted up the campaign against the Modi government at a time when Assembly election dates have been announced for five states and the Lok Sabha polls are scheduled to be held next year.

Kejriwal has been maintaining that the bill that could be introduced in Winter Session will "break" the back of the common man, making power tariffs for domestic consumers same as is for commercial and industrial units.

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(Published 07 October 2018, 18:29 IST)

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