General waging psychological campaign: AAP's Ilmi

Ghaziabad, April 3 (IANS) AAP leader and candidate Shazia Ilmi, pitted against former Indian Army chief Gen V.K. Singh in the Lok Sabha polls, has accused the BJP of waging a "psychological campaign" against her party.

A former journalist, Ilmi said this was the reason why Gen Singh, Ghaziabad's Bharatiya Janata Party candidate, called the Aam Aadmi Party "anti-national".

This is also why BJP's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi dubbed AAP founder leader Arvind Kejriwal a Pakistani agent, Ilmi told IANS in an interview here.

"It is the general's psychological campaign. Is the general claiming that he is the only patriot who has served the Indian Army?" she asked.

"In my opinion no retired officer would prefer to come to politics as disrespectfully as Gen V.K. Singh has barged in," she said.

Asked to respond to charges that the AAP had displayed a controversial map of India on its web site, Ilmi said: "(Modi) has also alleged Kejriwal is an agent of Pakistan. This is also their slander campaign.

"In fact the BJP is worried about the growing popularity of the AAP... The map displayed on the AAP web site is the same map displayed at the BJP web site."

Ilmi insisted that the AAP's main opponent in the Lok Sabha election was the BJP.

"That is why they are fabricating rumours against the AAP. They want to win the election hook or crook."

The other candidates in the fray in Ghaziabad are former actor Raj Babbar of the Congress, Mukul of the Bahujan Samaj Party and Sudhan Kumar of the Samajwadi Party.