Ahead of the counting of votes for Punjab polls, Aam Aadmi Party’s chief ministerial candidate Bhagwant Mann has exuded confidence of party’s comfortable victory in the state and said people have rejected other political parties. Mann, who visited the place where EVMs are stored in Patiala, asserted that Punjab wants a change.
“We talked about hospitals, schools, electricity (during campaigns). People have rejected other parties and good results will come tomorrow. I’m not an astrologer but I know people of Punjab want a change. The number of seats we can cross is 80 even 100,” Mann told ANI. Mann said that AAP wants to boost employment in the state.
“I don’t want fame; I have had it since I was seventeen-and-a-half years. I want my Punjab to be fine. We want to bring the youth of Punjab back from abroad and other states and give them jobs. We want the industrial policy to work well. We will fulfil all our guarantees and work for multiplying them by four,” he said. He said a party-led government will install pictures of Bhagat Singh and BR Ambedkar in government offices in Punjab.
“There are only Bhagat Singh’s and BR Ambedkar’s pictures in my house and I will do the same in all government offices in Punjab. We are insignificant in front of them. Bhagat Singh was martyred at the age of 23. We have lived a life double of his. We should do something for our country, we cannot wait for another Bhagat Singh to come to free us,” he said. Mann said Ambedkar studied abroad despite his humble circumstances on the basis of his academic merit and brilliance.
The AAP leader also took a dig at those questioning the prediction of exit polls in Punjab and referred to lines of famous poet Mirza Ghalib “Dil behlane ko Ghalib khayal achha hai”. “Wait for one day and you will be wiped out,” he said.
Exit polls on Monday predicted a clear victory for the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in Punjab with the scale of the party’s victory varying across various surveys. Several surveys predicted Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP, which is in power in Delhi, getting a landslide victory.
The surveys also predicted that the ruling Congress will finish a distant second in the state followed by Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) which had allied with Bahujan Samaj Party. The BJP and its allies are not predicted to do well, according to the surveys. If the results come as per the prediction of exit polls, it will be the first time that AAP will come to power in Punjab.
Polling was held in the state on February 20 and the results will be declared on March 10.
