Thank god, nightmare is over: Jaitley on Kejriwal's resignation
New Delhi, Feb 15 (IANS) BJP leader Arun Jaitley Saturday expressed relief at the AAP government's resignation, saying "the nightmare is finally over".
The leader of opposition in Rajya Sabha termed the Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government "the worst state government that Delhi has ever witnessed".
In a blog post, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and described the 49-day-old government as an "unconventional government" and one "without an agenda and without an ideology".
"It was a government committed to populism and demagogue," he wrote.
On Feb 4, AAP cadres had held a protest outside Jaitley's house alleging he was behind a move to topple the Kejriwal government. The protest followed allegations by an AAP lawmaker that Jaitley and Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi were trying to buy off AAP legislators to topple the government. Jaitley had then termed the AAP "pathological liars".
In Saturday's blog post, Jaitley said the Kejriwal government followed a motto of "clever politics and no governance".
He said most of the AAP lawmakers were inexperienced and lacked maturity.
"At times, they were outlandish. They had an agitational approach but were foreign to any form of governance," he said.
He asked if the AAP government had tried to expand the drinking water connectivity in Delhi, or a scheme to increase health care facilities or adding to the infrastructure.
"The 49-day government had no mind space for any of these issues," he said.
Jaitley also said the AAP government focused its approach "only to agitational issues".
"It agitated against the home minister, against the Lt. Governor, against the commissioner of police and against the African ladies. Its approach was to concoct falsehood and create imaginary enemies and then carry on propaganda on the strength of attacking the imaginary enemies".
"It had the arrogance to believe that only its leaders were honest and everybody else was compromised. It started losing popularity with everyday in government."
He said the party had begun to realise that its leaders in the secretariat were "a bull in a China shop. They were more suited to the streets".
"It therefore crafted an exit route for itself. Its Jan Lokpal Bill was kept as a closely guarded secret till the last day," Jaitley said.
He added that the Jan Lokpal bill is "not radically different from the central legislation but it wanted to create a false propaganda that its bill is a revolutionary one in comparison to the central law".
He went on to allege that the Kejriwal government "decided to defy the conventional procedure for legislative approval in order to invent a pretext for resignation".
Jaitley said the AAP government "defied the hopes of many who wanted to see an alternative politics emerge. The alternative politics was populism, demagogue, falsehood but no governance. Thank god, the nightmare is over," he said.