Those Trying to Spread Hatred Rooted Out from Delhi, Says Digvijay Singh

Raipur: Hailing the results of the Delhi assembly polls as a "good sign", senior Congress leader Digvijay Singh on Wednesday said those who spread "religious hatred" and tried to capitalise on the new citizenship law were wiped out.

Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) achieved a successive landslide victory in Delhi after the 2015 polls on Tuesday, decimating its main challenger BJP.

Talking to reporters here in Chhattisgarh, Singh took a dig at Union Home Minister Amit Shah for his pre-poll appeal to voters vis-a-vis the Shaheen Bagh protest. Singh was in Chhattisgarh to attend the funeral of state health minister T S Singh Deo's mother in Ambikapur district.

"Amit Shahji had asked people to press the voting button with such force that the current is felt in Shaheen Bagh. (the then CM of the erstwhile Jammu and Kashmir state) Mehbooba Mufti's daughter has given a good statement by saying that the button was pressed (by voters) in such a way that it (BJP) got electrocuted," he said.

It was a "good sign" that all those forces that spread "hatred" in the name of religion and tried to derive a political mileage from the new citizenship law by seeking to divide Hindus and Muslims were "rooted out" by the people in the elections, he said.

Speaking on the Congress' performance in Delhi, which drew a blank, Singh said the entire votes got shifted to the AAP as people backed the person and the party which they believed could defeat the BJP.

He also said that the Congress had secured more votes in Delhi than the AAP in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. "The same results will be replicated in Bihar and West Bengal (where elections are due in 2020 and 2021, respectively)," he said.

Singh termed the recent Union Budget as "disappointing" while citing "rising unemployment" and the "poor condition fo the economy".

"Due to less collection of GST, states are not getting their due share and the state governments are being cheated. Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman can cut budget from anywhere (any fund), but the Constitutional rights of the state should not be snatched," he said.