This is one question he has been trolled for massively on Twitter
Moderated by music composer Vishal Dadlani, the session was almost 2 hours long, in which Kejriwal answered all the questions asked to him by people across the country. On July 17, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal held an interactive session with the people of Delhi called ‘Talk to AK’.
Not that he wouldn’t have expected, a question on the number of advertisements rolled out by the AAP government had to pop; ads by Kejriwal, being one of the favourite topics of people on social media.
Heard Kejriwal cried at Interstate council meet about inadequate funding from the Centre.He needs more fund for what? To give full page ads?
— Priti Gandhi (@MrsGandhi) July 17, 2016
2 full pg ads in all major nwsprs on “spectacular achievements” of Kejriwal govt, including ‘Portable Water’ supply! pic.twitter.com/uaT8qnzqyY
— Jagdish Upasane (@jdupasane) July 15, 2016
Hehe 2 full pages of ads in all languages by Kejriwal…
Is bhai ka PM campaign hi nahi khatam ho raha December 2013 se…
— Gappistan Radio (@GappistanRadio) July 15, 2016
In fact, it was the first question Dadlani asked the CM.
“At one end you say Modi ji is not letting you work and on the other hand you spend crores on advertising telling people what you’ve achieved in Delhi, how is this possible?” a caller asked Kejriwal, said Dadlani.
It’s a two part question and the question on ads keeps popping. Whatever achievements I share, everything has actually happened. It’s not imaginary. In fact, I invite you all to check the mohalla clinics, polyclinics, we’ve set up, and the classrooms and schools Manish (Sisodia) has helped built. Electricity bill and water bill have come down, you must have received the bill. But the kind of hurdles we face, I’ll share with you.
Imagine if there were no hurdles, we would have been able to do twice or thrice the amount of work we’ve done so far. Our Vidhan Sabha passed 14 bills and sent it to the centre. The problem here is that whichever bill is passed in Delhi Vidhan Sabha has to go to Centre for approval which is not the case in other states. Jan Lokpal Bill, no detention policy bill and many others were sent 8 months ago and have not been passed yet. Eleven of our officers were transferred from Delhi without our permission. At least they should ask us.
The officer who was working on the CCTV project has been transferred.
Then he went on to explain how they proposed to appoint the NGO Akshay Patra for mid-day scheme in Delhi but it was refused by lieutenant governor. He added that they’ve also built 8,000 classrooms and 45 schools but the LG refused their proposal to hire teachers or convert guest teachers to permanent teachers.
“If they would have supported us and not created an India-Pakistan like situation, then they would’ve achieved a lot more than what they already have,” said Kejriwal.
A caller then asked how the Delhi govt has spent Rs 526 crore on ads and why do they advertise outside Delhi?
We’ve not spent 526 crores on advertisement, we’ve spent 75 crores. RSS does a great job at spreading rumours. In fact, I must tell you that the entire Delhi government has spent 75 crores which is not a lot. Earlier, different departments in the government used to spend separately which caused major corruption.
And why do we display ads outside? Because Delhi is India’s Capital. People from different states reside in Delhi so people across the country want to know what’s going on in Delhi. Secondly, it’s important to tell different states about the good work that’s happening in Delhi so investment and business can come in.
