 "Snatching our office is injustice, you can't finish AAP: Arvind Kejriwal")
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Saturday described as "injustice" Lt Governor Anil Baijal's move to shut down the AAP's only office in the national capital.
The Friday decision was an attempt to finish off the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) but this would never succeed, a combative Kejriwal told the media.
Kejriwal said the AAP was not just the ruling party in Delhi but a state-recognised party which had every right to have an office in the city.
"We had an office... We had done no wrong. We are not begging for an office. We have a right to have an office," he said. Asked about Baijal's decision, he said: "It is injustice."
The AAP leader said it was ironical that the Congress, with no seat in the Delhi assembly, not only had its national headquarters in Delhi but a separate Delhi office too.
It had two other offices as well besides a plot of land in Delhi, he added. "But a party with 67 of the 70 seats in the assembly now has no office."
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AAP's office on Deen Dayal Upadhyay Marg was shut down on grounds that it was wrongly allotted to the party. The AAP has denied the charge.
Similarly, Kejriwal said, the BJP and its affiliates had a total of seven offices in the capital including one for its Delhi office.
Even parties like the RJD and BSP had offices in Delhi, he pointed out. "So why are they doing this to us? What is our crime?"
Kejriwal said the AAP had become a target of all the "mafias" it had taken on, including the electricity and pharma companies, water tankers and private schools.
"Every day new lies are hurled at us. These have no head and no tail... They want to finish us off. It won't happen."
Kejriwal said since the shutting down of the AAP office, he had been flooded with invitations from people in Delhi offering the use of their premises for the AAP.
"The people will take revenge on April 23 (when the municipal elections take place)," he added.