[Mumbai: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar during a press conference, at Y.B. Chavan Centre in Mumbai, Thursday, May 25, 2023. ( /PTI]
Mumbai, May 25 : Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and his Punjab counterpart Bhagwant Mann on Thursday met Nationalist Congress Party President Sharad Pawar who offered his "full support" to the Aam Aadmi Party in its fight to safeguard its powers against the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Central government.
"Democracy is under attack from the BJP. We must all unitedly safeguard it. Efforts are being made to deprive the rights of governments elected by the people and create hurdles for them. We shall fully support the AAP's fight in parliament," declared Pawar after his half-hour meeting with Kejriwal-Mann and other leaders.
Pawar said that this is no longer restricted to Delhi or any individual party, but a national problem concerning every state, especially the non-BJP states and he would speak with all non-BJP parties to join and unitedly fight this movement to protect democracy with the AAP.
Kejriwal said that great injustice was being done by the BJP to the people of Delhi even after the 8-year long legal battle in the Supreme Court and now the Centre has brought the Ordinance to usurp the state's rights on appointments of officials.
"This struggle has gone beyond Delhi. It's a fight to safeguard the federal structure of the country which the BJP is trying to undermine," he said.
Referring to the BJP's machinations in non-BJP states, Kejriwal said that if the people vote against it, then the BJP buys out its MLAs to topple the government, or put Central investigating agencies to hound their leaders or harass them through the Governors who do not allow the elected governments to function.
"This is the message that if the people don't vote for the BJP, then they will either bring it down or not allow it to function. This must stop and we have to unitedly save democracy and the federal structure," urged Kejriwal.
"We are said to be the world's biggest democracy, but the reality is that attempts are being made to kill it through various means. The state Raj Bhavans have become like BJP headquarters and the Governors interfere in every routine work of the state government and don't allow them to work," added Mann.
On Wednesday, Kejriwal and Mann met former Maharashtra CM Uddhav Thackeray and secured the Shiv Sena-UBT's support in his campaign for Delhi' rights, and has earlier met other CM's and political leaders around the country.
Armed with two consecutive successes in Maharashtra, a beaming Kejriwal said he will take an appointment to meet Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi for their support in his crusade.
/IANS