As it happened: Kejriwal ends fast, says Cong, BJP will be wiped out

6.40 pm: BJP, Cong will be wiped out, says Kejriwal Arvind Kejriwal after breaking his fast today hit out at both the BJP and Congress saying that the parties will be wiped out soon. “Today, people are fed up of both the BJP and the Congress. These parties will be wiped out in the elections,” Zee News quoted Kejriwal as saying. Except the first and the last days, when around 300 people thronged the fast venue, the crowd at the fast venue was thin. AAP maintained that unlike its previous agitations, numbers did not matter as this time the idea was to decentralise the protest. Zee News reported that Kejriwal, hitting out at the main opposition party, said that the BJP is just pretending to oppose electricity prices. “Vijay Goel was only offering token protests.” 5.45 pm: Media ignores, twitterati mocks Kejriwal What happened to all the support that the media and citizens of India had shown Arvind Kejriwal only months ago? As Kejriwal broke his fast, the media has seemed to have turned a blind eye. Is the cause of Kejriwal’s battle — bijli and paani — not important to the public, who were up in arms and by Kejriwal’s side when he was fighting against corruption. While news channels have chosen to air entertainment shows, as Kejriwal fights for basic rights of citizens, Twitter is abuzz with mockery about his fast. Has Kejriwal really made a joke of himself, like the twitterati thinks? The only person who tweeted in his support was Shekhar Kapur. Here are some of the tweets: https://twitter.com/WickkedSoul/status/320509888197427200 https://twitter.com/realin/status/320509544973348864 https://twitter.com/punbali/status/320508746814083072 https://twitter.com/PrachinVaani/status/320496080007606273 https://twitter.com/madmanweb/status/320502257319809025 https://twitter.com/iKabirBedi/status/320040673929740288 5.01 pm: Kejriwal demands 20 kilolitre of free water for each family After breaking his fast, Aam Aadmi Party convenor Arvind Kejriwal asked the government to provide 20 kilolitre of free water for each family in New Delhi, reported Hindustan Times through a tweet. “When AAP forms the govt, we will give 20 kilolitre of water free to poor families and electricity at half the price,” Kejriwal said. While all this happens, all television channels ignore him. 4.43 pm: Little girl hands over glass of water to Kejriwal Arvind Kejriwal broke his fast today after 16 days of protest against inflated power and water bills in New Delhi. A little girl, wearing a Aam Aadmi Party Netaji cap gave Kejriwal a glass of water. ABP News tweeted out a photograph: https://twitter.com/abpnewstv/status/320494372061839360 Aam Aadmi Party chief and activist Arvind Kejriwal ended his fast today by receiving a glass of water from a little girl in Sunder Nagri, New Delhi. Arvind Kejriwal who had been on a fast for 16 days, protesting against inflated water and power bills in New Delhi, has decided to call off his fast yesterday. [caption id=“attachment_688882” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  AAP convener Arvind Kejriwal. Naresh Sharma/Firstpost[/caption] Kejriwal began his fast on 23 March to protest against inflated water and power bills in New Delhi. AAP activists will start a drive to restore electricity connections in the national capital from today. While Kejriwal had been staying at a house in Sunder Nagri, a resettlement colony in North East Delhi district, AAP volunteers had been asking people to sign letters saying they will not pay their bills, which they say are unjustly inflated. Since the launch of his political party late last year, Kejriwal has been taking on the Delhi government over water and power tariffs, that he claims are wrongly inflated. The AAP is hoping to garner votes based on this campaign in the Delhi assembly polls that are scheduled to take place around 2013-end. To galvanise voters on inflated bills, Kejriwal has been fasting for 14 days living in a house in Sundar Nagri, a resettlement colony in northeast Delhi. AAP claims to have collected more than 10 lakh letters of support, in which people have pledged not pay their inflated water and electricity bills. “This is a referendum. One should not measure it by the number of signatures we received. These signatures signify that people are angry about inflated bills,” said Kejriwal addressing crowd at the venue of his fast yesterday. “Ten lakh people signing letters does not mean that all of them will not submit their bills. But a beginning has been made. Even if ten per cent of them don’t pay their bills, it will be significant,” he added.