Anti-graft advertisements with Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal removed

NEW DELHI: The Delhi government's anti- corruption advertisements featuring Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, have been removed following recent Supreme Court orders, and replaced with posters showing the success of the anti-graft helpline 1031.

The state government is also planning to use images of Mahatma Gandhi or Bhagat Singh in these ads, a senior government official said.

"We have removed pictures of Chief Minister from existing 1031 helpline advertisements. The new poster features hand wearing handcuffs highlight helpline's achievement to arrest 35 and suspend 152 officials," the official said.

"We may now use pictures of Mahatma Gandhi, Bhagat Singh and other national heroes in our advertisements as we cannot use Chief Minister's picture," he said.

Observing that Kejriwal had a mass connect, a senior official said it would now be difficult to promote the government's policies and schemes without a prominent face and so the images of national heroes will be used.

"For long we have been using Chief Minister's picture on government advertisement. Kejriwal's picture was used as he has large public connect and people gave large mandate in Assembly election on his name," the official said, adding, the anti-corruption helpline 1031 had got "encouraging" response.

"It will now be very challenging to promote government policies and schemes without Kejriwal's picture. We will be working on some powerful and innovative ideas to promote the government's message," he said.

The Supreme Court had recently banned publication of government ads with photos of leaders except those of the President, Prime Minister or Chief Justice of India.

AAP government had also released a 39-second long TV commercial last week in which Kejriwal spoke about how his government was able to pay higher compensation to rain-hit farmers, by keeping a check on corruption.