After MCD poll rout, Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal asks AAP councillors to swear not to betray party

Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) convener and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Thursday advised AAP’s newly elected councillors to maintain their faith in the party’s founding principles. Kejriwal told the winners of the elections for the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) that honesty remains paramount in the party’s fundamental principles of serving people. [caption id=“attachment_3405446” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Arvind Kejriwal file image[/caption] Taking a dig at his opponents, Kejriwal said that in other political parties people had to buy their candidature for such polls, which they later recover from public money by indulging in corruption. He said that since the AAP councillors didn’t have to pay anyone, they could practice honesty if they wanted to. He also stressed that AAP councillors are likely to face unwarranted duress as and when they will uncover corruption, but he advised them to stay strong and pursue the party’s anti-corruption agenda relentlessly. He said that the AAP councillors must stay ready to resist temptations as their opponents will try to buy their silence. He asked the newly elected council members to take an oath to never betray the party and the people they were sworn to serve. Kejriwal insisted that the councillors must never ignore the pleas of a common party volunteer as it was the ground cadre who had made promises to the people while asking for their votes. Seeking to keep the flock together, Kejriwal urged the newly elected members to stick together as a family and stay united with the party’s common workers. Kejriwal, addressing the 42 councillors of the party, reminded them of the core principles of the party that was a byproduct of the famous India Against Corruption movement, that saw millions of youth mobilised against corruption in politics. The nascent party shot to fame instantly with promising poll performance in the subsequent Delhi Assembly elections. However, the verdict of the local body polls this time was nowhere near satisfactory, with the AAP standing a distant second on its home turf, just when it is hoping to expand its base beyond Delhi. The slip for the party was steep this time as in comparison to the 2015 assembly poll as the vote share of the AAP decreased almost by half from 54.3 percent to 26.21 percent in the recently concluded MCD polls.