Delhi polls 2015: AAP manifesto contains 'rehashed', 'borrowed' ideas, says BJP

NEW DELHI: Terming AAP manifesto as a document of "rehashed" and "borrowed" ideas, BJP today said the promises made by its rival party were not even worthy of consideration.

Labelling the manifesto as "entertaining", Union Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said AAP did not have a blue print for developing Delhi into a global city.

"Going through the manifesto reveals that it is full of rehashed ideas from its last year's manifesto. Many of the points have been borrowed from BJP's future plans for the capital," she said in a press conference.

Speaking in broken hindi, Sitharaman also took a dig at AAP leader Kumar Vishwas, saying "vishwas nahi hain us party pe jaha Vishwas baithe hai (we do not believe in the party, of which Vishwas is a member)."

Asked about BJP's stand on the issue of giving full statehood to Delhi, the Minister said that government was "seriously seized" of the matter.

"Statehood is a serious issue involving different layers of governance including internal security, national security, resource mobilisation. We are seriously seized of the matter. We aren't saying we won't give statehood to Delhi," she said.

The party also lobbed a fresh set of questions to AAP alleging that electricity tariff had gone up by up to seven per cent during the 49-day government contrary to AAP's claims of a 50 per cent reduction.

Union Minister Ananth Kumar claimed that the short-lived AAP government had subsidised private distribution companies asking why the relief was not directly passed on to the consumers and an audit of the discoms were not conducted.

The party also questioned the AAP's claim of not conducting VAT raids traders while it was in power. Citing an "RTI reply", Kumar said that 151 raids by VAT department were conducted between January 1 and 14.

BJP also sought to counter AAP's assertion of collecting over Rs 5000 crore as revenue while it was in the government. He said the AAP was "befooling" contractual employees in the name of regularising them.