AAP threat an illusion, BJP way ahead: Amit Shah

What do you think of Congress's chances?

Being an old party, Congress has its pockets of influence. It has an organization too. But in Delhi our main challenger is AAP and it is a weak challenger.

But their plank, especially populist policies, appear to have caught the imagination of a sizeable section of the electorate?

Making populist and extravagant promises to woo people is an old trick. It no longer works effectively as it did 20-30 years ago. Now, it's performance that counts. Arvind Kejriwal succeeded once in misleading people by promising them the moon. Once in office, he recognized that keeping the promises was impossible. He resigned after only 49 days to escape being lynched.

Well, Kejriwal has defended himself by saying that Gandhiji was also an anarchist.

Gandhiji's fight was against colonial masters and laws foisted by foreign masters on Indians. Today, we are living under a Constitution and under laws that we have framed for ourselves. How can you subvert the rule of law and still pose as a martyr?

But he wanted to attend the Republic Day parade but did not get an invite?

He is playing victim. This has been his favourite ploy. Actually, this one incident exposes the hypocrisy of a man who poses himself as "aam aadmi" but wants to be treated as VIP. He should have bought a ticket and watched the parade with the common people. Instead, he is protesting that he was denied VIP treatment. Look at the gap between words and deeds here.

Isn't that true of all political parties?

AAP is barely two-and-a-half years old and it has already surpassed all records of hypocrisy. I can cite 25 instances where they have brazenly reversed themselves or have ended up being at odds with what they set out with. Kejriwal has vowed that he would never align with Congress but grabbed its offer to become CM. He thundered that he would take action on the basis of Shunglu Committee's report on Commonwealth Games scam but did nothing because that would have hurt Congress. He did not keep his promises of regularization of casual employees of power companies, DTC and teachers in government schools either. Regularization was also promised to lakhs living in illegal colonies but he did nothing. From WagonR to SUVs and travelling business class and taking chartered planes to visit Dubai for fundraising, Kejriwal has moved a huge distance. To think that people will remain oblivious to the duplicity of a man who claimed to be the special one and superior to all is to insult their intelligence.

Your opponents say BJP has also failed to deliver on promises it made to win LS polls?

This is not true. We inherited a mess. Yet, within a short span, we have tried to put things back on the rails. Policy paralysis is over and growth is picking up. Wholesale inflation which had reached the double digit level is now down to just a little over zero. Vegetable and food prices have moderated providing comfort. Estimates suggest that inflation moderation has meant benefits ranging from Rs 1,500 to Rs 4,500 for households. Is this a mean achievement? While working towards a stable economic recovery, we have also launched long-term strategies like "Make In India" and skill development for boosting manufacturing and employment and Jan Dhan Yojana for ensuring almost all households have banking access. Isn't it significant? People have certainly taken note of this and this will be reflected in the result.