Kejriwal hits out at BJP: ‘Who ate samosas worth Rs 2 cr from tribal grant?’

“In the reply given to Chaitarbhai, the administration has listed the expenses… Rs 5 crore for the erection of pandals and things… Rs 2 crore for samosas! Who ate samosas worth Rs 2 crore? And, do you know that this was a grant meant for tribal development… It was an event involving PM Modi; he has no dearth of funds; he could have spent the money from any other Central government head and devoured on samosas worth Rs 20 or 30 crores. But why was the tribal fund used to eat samosas worth Rs 2 crores?

The RTI reply of the Narmada district authorities to questions put forth by Chaitar Vasava that Kejriwal was referring to, had stated that out of a total expenditure of Rs 23 crores, Rs 2 crores were spent on catering. As per the invoice of Ahmedabad based SK caterers attached with the replies handed out to the MLA, Rs 41.62 lakhs were spent on 46250 units of morning food pack while 84750 food packets worth Rs 1.53 crores were also ordered along with 65000 packets of biscuits at a cost of Rs 6.5 lakhs. The reply also stated that close to Rs 3 crores were spent on the stage, dome and other pandals erected for the event.

On Monday, Kejriwal also questioned why the five Vadodara MLAs – Shailesh Mehta from Dabhoi, Ketan Inamdar from Savli, Dharmendrasinh Vaghela from Waghodia, Akshay Patel from Karjan, and Chaitanyasinh Zala from Padra – wrote to CM Patel stating that officials in the bureaucracy were “ignoring and neglecting” development works suggested by the legislators in their respective constituencies. Kejriwal said, “I am told that when this letter reached the CM, he told the MLAs that officials were not even listening to him… It is evident from the way things are panning out in Gujarat. There was a time when Gujarat was the richest, most prosperous and happy state of the country… but today, the BJP has expropriated the roads, seeds for farmers, education in government schools, employment… everything has been ‘eaten up’… This letter from the five MLAs is a message to the people form the BJP, saying, ‘Do not bring your grievances to us; we cannot help’. The BJP has failed.”

Kejriwal accused the BJP of “handing liquor and drugs” to unemployed, educated youth in the state. He said, “If your children go to them (BJP) to ask for employment, they will hand out a bottle of spurious liquor in their hands; if your children go to ask for employment again, they will hand out packets of heroin and cocaine to the youth, pushing them into drug addiction. They (BJP) have destroyed Gujarat in the last 30 years…”

While exhorting the new entrants to AAP as well as the booth level workers to “meet five voters everyday” in preparation for the 2027 Gujarat Assembly polls, Kejriwal cited a purported recent interaction with a Congress leader and said, “I asked the Congress leader, why don’t you fight the BJP in Gujarat. I was told, ‘ How can we fight with them when we have joint businesses with them’? You tell me if the Congress is capable of defeating the BJP… There is no other party except AAP that can defeat the BJP.”

Kejriwal also raised the issue of the January 2018 Harni Boat Tragedy that had left 14 persons dead, including 12 students and two teachers, who were on a school picnic to the Lake Zone in Harni Motnath lake area when the boat had capsized, Accusing the BJP of denying justice to the families, Kejriwal said, “I met the families of the Harni tragedy at my hotel … Yesterday (Sunday) marked two years since the tragedy but justice has not been served to the families… The contractors of the Lake Zone were all people of the BJP… The (BJP) is protecting them; when two of these grieving mothers went to the CM’s event last year, just asking him to give them time to meet, the CM had the police drag them away. Why can’t these mothers meet the CM? Is this the kind of government you want?”