Congress delivers stinging assessment of Delhi CM Kejriwal's free metro and bus travel for women announcement

The Delhi Congress dubbed Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's announcement on Monday to provide free travel to women in public transport buses and Metro trains as a "publicity stunt" made in view of the coming Assembly elections.

Reacting to the decision, Delhi Congress spokesperson Jitender Kochar said the state government should also provide free travel to students and senior citizens in buses and Metro trains.

"Kejriwal often makes announcements which he either does not fulfil or which do not come under his jurisdiction. The Assembly elections in Delhi are due in the next few months and he should stop publicity stunt by making such announcements," Kochar said.

Stating that the AAP lost all the seven Lok Sabha seats in recent polls and was pushed to the third spot on majority of the seats, he said that was why the party was making "populist" announcements for political gains in Assembly elections due early next year. 

Both Congress and AAP were routed and the BJP won all the Lok Sabha seats in Delhi with a huge majority. 

The AAP was pushed to third place in five of the seven constituencies by the Congress.

Former Delhi Congress MLA Mukesh Sharma said that Delhi people can no longer be "fooled" by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.

"The proposal to provide free ride to women in Metro trains and public transport buses is aimed at hiding failures of the Delhi government. Also, the announcement about installing 1.5 lakh CCTV cameras is an attempt to divert attention from unfulfilled promise of free wi-fi that AAP made to people before coming to power," Sharma said.

The Chief Minister also said that by December, around 1.5 lakh CCTV cameras will be installed across the city and a proposal for another 1.4. lakh cameras will be floated this month itself.

Providing free wi-fi connections to people was a major poll plank of AAP in the 2015 Assembly elections. PTI VIT  VIT