Aam Aadmi Party leader Arvind Kejriwal questioned the anti-corruption credentials of BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, claiming that he found rampant corruption in Gujarat on his recent visit there.
“I was shocked by the situation there. Not one job gets done there without bribes,” he said.
Kejriwal said a lot of people are buying the “Modi story” sold by popular media without doing a reality check.
“(To avail of) Indira Awaz Yojana, you have to pay 5,000 rupees as bribe, to make a driving license, you have to pay 5,000 rupees, to get a job as Talati (Mantri) in the government, you have to pay Rs 10 lakh, the rate for Assistant Registrar job is 33 lakhs and to transfer the DYSP, 2.75 crore has to be paid. The rate for everything is fixed, and everything is transparent. And Modi says he will remove corruption,” Kejriwal said in Mumbai.
He said his party had done a survey of all 26 districts of Gujarat and came up with the rates quoted above.
He attacked the media, claiming that some sections are running a campaign against his party. Indeed, Zeenews.com was recently forced to change the title of its article on Kejriwal’s Mumbai visit after protests by readers. The channel changed its title to “Arvind Kejriwal denied appointment with Narendra Modi” from its earlier headline of “Arvind Kejriwal leaves Gujarat after ‘want to meet Modi’ drama.”
Kejriwal said some media people are doing “gadbad.”
“Some people who met me today morning said, “Modi is a good leader, he’s transformed Gujarat.” I said, “how do you know? Have you been to Gujarat?” They said, “No, we have not been there, but we found out from the media.”
“For the last one year, it has been spread by TV channels that it is Ram Rajya in Gujarat,” he said.
Times Now, a TV channel from the Times of India group, had branded its multi-day coverage of Kejriwal’s agitation as ‘AAPDrama’ throughout its coverage – an unprecedented act as the channel had never used a pejorative “hashtag” to brand the entire coverage of any similar event by any other party.
Kejriwal said channels were not going to Gujarat to “expose” Modi’s claims of a corruption-free state.
“Not a word against Modi. They don’t have the guts,” he said.