Manish Sisodia asks public on AAP’s CM face during Uttarakhand visit

Delhi deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia on Thursday asked the people of Uttarakhand whether retired colonel and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Ajay Kothiyal should be the chief minister. Sisodia was on a day-long visit to the hill state.

Colonel Kothiyal, who is an Indian Army veteran and former principal of Uttarkashi-based Nehru Institute of Mountaineering, joined the AAP in April this year.

Addressing a press conference in Roorkee, Sisodia said he met the common people of the Uttarkashi including professionals, students and senior citizens like an ‘aam aadmi’ (common man), adding he received a positive response when he asked the people about Kothiyal as the chief ministerial face of AAP.

Accusing the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led government in Uttarakhand of being corrupt and protecting the corrupted, Sisodia said, “The BJP earlier had Trivendra Singh Rawat as CM and he was nicknamed ‘zero work chief minister’. After him, Tirath Singh Rawat came and he was also a ‘zero work chief minister’. And now, Pushkar Singh Dhami has arrived who openly says that he will neither not stop anyone from stealing nor will allow anyone else to stop it.”

The Delhi deputy chief minister further called Colonel Kothiyal a ‘nationalist’ who has devoted his life towards serving the country. “I want to ask a question to the people. Should Colonel Kothiyal be the chief minister of Uttarakhand?” Sisodia said at the briefing.

He announced that the AAP will field candidates in all the 70 seats at assembly elections in the state slated for next year.

Sisodia said Uttarakhand lacks quality education and faces electricity problems. The AAP will change this if it comes to power, he added.

Sisodia’s visit comes almost two weeks after Delhi CM and AAP’s national convener Arvind Kejriwal visited Dehradun on July 11 and announced among other things free electricity to the people of the poll-bound state.