“This campaign should be run during the UP elections too. Pollution in Noida and Greater Noida is as bad as Delhi’s. You should have this agenda during the Haryana polls too because Haryana’s air is equally bad.”
This is how AAP leader and Greater Kailash MLA Saurabh Bhardwaj responded when asked about the capital’s toxic air and Newlaundry’s reportage on the issue under our year-long campaign. Bhardwaj, one of the prominent faces of the AAP government, seemed to suggest that Newlaundry began its campaign keeping the upcoming Delhi assembly polls in mind.
Bhardwaj is incorrect. Newslaundry launched the campaign much before the Delhi polling date was announced. More importantly, the initiative not only focuses on Delhi, but on the whole of north India and other regions and cities, such as Mumbai, that are all reeling under the pollution crisis.
But back to Bhardwaj, whom we interviewed during his poll campaign at Chirag Delhi. A three-time MLA from South Delhi’s Greater Kailash and a cabinet minister with eight portfolios, Bhardwaj is up against BJP’s Shikha Rai and Congress’s Garvit Singhvi.
When asked about Muslim voters’ reported compulsion to vote for his party, Bhardwaj said, “I don’t think the Aam Aadmi Party makes its policies keeping in mind one community. We make schools, hospitals, mohalla clinics. We give electricity, water. It’s for everyone, whether it is Muslim, Christian, Hindu or Dalit.”
We also questioned him about AAP workers and leaders jumping ship to join the BJP and his party’s blueprint for creating jobs for Delhi’s youth.
Watch.
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