Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal visited Lucknow on Thursday and pinpricked Yogi Adityanath again by saying that four days had passed but none from the BJP had contradicted his claim that the party would dump the Uttar Pradesh chief minister.
While addressing a joint news conference with Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav in Lucknow, the Aam Admi Party leader said: “I am here to tell the people many things but one of the most important things is that the BJP has made up its mind to remove Yogi Adityanath from the post of chief minister.”
“I had revealed this to the people in Delhi four days ago but the BJP leaders have not yet reacted. It is proof they are all set to drop Adityanath,” the Delhi chief minister added.
Kejriwal claimed: “Be it Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Vasundhara Raje, Raman Singh or Devendra Fadnavis — they all were sidelined because they could be potential obstructions for Shah on his way to becoming Prime Minister. The only leader who is left is the Uttar Pradesh chief minister. We have information that he will be removed within 2-3 months if the BJP wins the election this time. However, according to the feedback from across the country, the BJP will win less than 250 seats. The INDIA bloc is going to win and form the government.”
Adityanath during Modi’s meeting in Azamgarh on Thursday. PTI
Adityanath told a rally later: “Kejriwal has lost his mind after going to jail. The Delhi CM, who shattered Anna Hazare’s aspirations and sided with the corrupt, is now targeting me. He has embraced the Congress, against whom Anna protested, like a necklace.”
A few hours after Kejriwal’s media conference in the state capital, a journalist from Gorakhpur told The Telegraph on the condition of anonymity: “The rumour has been there for the last four-five months that Modi and (Amit) Shah have planned to send Adityanath back to his math after the elections. Kejriwal has only strengthened the rumour.”
Adityanath is the mahant of the Gorakhnath temple in Gorakhpur, 290km east of Lucknow.
Kejriwal said: “People hope that Modiji will not break a rule made by himself that BJP leaders will retire at the age of 75. Or else, the people would allege that he had made this rule in 2014 only to dislodge (Lal Krishna) Advani and was backtracking now from it when it came to him.”
“I also want to alert the people that Modiji is seeking votes this time for Amit Shahji and not for himself. He is turning 75 on September 17, 2025, and has fixed that day to declare Amit Shahji as his successor,” the Aam Admi Party leader said.
Kejriwal said it could be that Shah and some other BJP leaders had claimed that Modi shouldn’t leave after turning 75, but the Prime Minister himself had not reacted to it.
Akhilesh said: “According to our feedback, the BJP is losing 400 seats and winning less than 143 seats.”
There are 543 seats in the Lok Sabha.
Kejriwal also stressed that the RSS and the Bharatiya Jan Sangh had always opposed reservation for the Other Backward Castes, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in government jobs and they wanted 400-plus Lok Sabha seats to scrap this provision from the Constitution.
“The BJP is ready to scrap reservation and abrogate the Constitution of India completely. The people should be alert because whatever the BJP leader says are lies,” Akhilesh said.
