AAP Releases Manifesto, Promises full Statehood for Delhi (Second Lead)

New Delhi, Jan 31 (IANS) The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Saturday released its manifesto for the Feb 7 Delhi assembly elections, promising to give the city full statehood and make it a trade hub besides reducing power tariff.

The manifesto also promised to enhance women's safety by installing CCTV cameras, open 20 new colleges, clean drinking water at affordable prices and a free Wi-Fi zone, among others.

AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal, who released the manifesto, said it was a sacred document for his party akin to the "Gita, Bible, Quran, and Guru Granth Sahib".

Giving a road map of creating more employments, the former chief minister said: "We wish to make Delhi as trade, tourist, education and service hubs. This will help in generating more employment in the city."

Besides, passing Janlokpal and Swaraj bills would be on priority of the AAP government.

"We want every women to feel safe and secure. Over 10 lakh CCTV cameras will be installed across the capital. A security guard will be deployed in every government bus," Kejriwal said.

He said the manifesto containing 70 points action plan would be implemented soon after coming to power as they had done in the earlier rule of 49 days. Power tariff will be reduced by 50 percent, he added.

Taking a dig at BJP for not coming out with a manifesto, Kejriwal said the BJP was shying away from making any promises as they had not fulfilled any of the promises they had made at the time of the 2014 Lok Sabha election.

"What to say about fulfilling promises, they (BJP) have not taken any steps in that direction," the AAP leader said.

He added: "BJP had talked of bringing down prices but they are rising unabated. They had also talked of bringing down the rate of electricity charges but the same has been hiked twice since they came to power."

The BJP has announced that it would abstain from releasing a manifesto for the Delhi polls and would instead come up with a "vision document".

He said the BJP's claim that people of Delhi do not want full statehood was wrong.

With regard to the Congress, Kejriwal said in its rule of 15 years, the party released three manifestos in which they had made tall claims, but sadly most of their promises have not realised.

Delhi goes to the poll Feb 7 and ballots will be counted Feb 10.