New Delhi, Jan 7 (PTI) Senior BJP leader Baijayant Jay Panda on Tuesday said his party, if elected to power in Delhi, will add to the existing welfare schemes and deliver benefits to women like it has in other states, as he slammed the AAP as a party of "frauds".

The BJP's in-charge for the Delhi Assembly polls told PTI that his party is targeting to win over 50 per cent of the votes in the national capital, pointing out that its vote share in assembly elections has been steadily catching up with that in the Lok Sabha polls.

Also Read | Draft Digital Personal Data Protection Rules, 2025: Narendra Modi Says DPDP Rules Prioritise India's Citizen-Centric Governance.

A day after Delhi Chief Minister Atishi turned emotional while reacting to the BJP candidate Ramesh Bidhuri's personal jibe linked to her family, Panda said his party always advises its members to speak in public after due consideration even as he asked the AAP leader to respond to "political questions".

Bidhuri is contesting against Atishi from the Kalkaji Assembly segment.

Also Read | Gold, Silver Prices in India: Yellow Metal Climbs INR 700 to INR 79,700 per 10 gm; White Metal Jumps INR 1,300 Due to Fresh Buying by Jewellers and Depreciation in Indian Rupee.

Panda claimed that "her family staunchly supported Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru."

He added, "She has still not distanced herself from this. Her own party insults women. The former chief minister (Arvind Kejriwal) who was in jail has openly described as a temporary CM. This is an insult".

The BJP has accused her father of mobilising support for Guru who was later hanged. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has in turn charged the BJP with adopting diversionary tactics.

Assembly polls in Delhi will be held on February 5 and the votes will be counted on February 8, Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar announced earlier on Tuesday.

With the AAP's campaign riding on its government's welfare schemes, and promises to give women Rs 2,100 per month and free health treatment to senior citizens, the BJP vice president said his party, if elected to power, will add to the existing welfare programmes.

Panda noted that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has already announced the continuation of the existing welfare schemes.

While AAP convener Arvind Kejriwal has claimed that the BJP will shut down these measures, Panda dismissed the charge as propaganda.

Frequently describing the AAP as "aapda" (disaster) for Delhi, the BJP vice president said, "The big difference will be that we will deliver to people as we have in other states, and we will do it corruption-free."

Citing financial assistance provided to women in BJP-ruled states like Odisha and Madhya Pradesh, he asserted, "In Delhi, of course, we will provide facilities to women. AAP cheats people. They are frauds."

If the AAP government was sincere, it would have begun providing financial assistance to women, he said, noting that the party has not delivered on its similar promise in Punjab.

"They (AAP govt) know they are not in a position to do it. They have run Delhi into the ground. For the first time, Delhi (budget) is in deficit," he said, accusing "aapda government" of scams worth rupees thousands of crores in the Delhi Jal Board and liquor trade while doing no infrastructure development in the national capital.

"The capital of India does not look like the capital of an emerging, growing, aspiring and influential nation. Delhi needs a conflict-free government that will work together with the Centre for its development.

"Delhiites deserve a city which is representative of this new India, be it proper road, clean water, proper infra and a health facility available to everyone and not these fake mohalla clinics," he said.

Panda claimed that be it the poor living in jhuggi-jhopri clusters or the middle class, people are fed up with the "false" promises of the AAP. "They have decided to give a chance to the BJP", he asserted.

Asked about Kejriwal's jibe at the BJP for not having a chief ministerial face, he said it was reflective of the AAP leader's desperation as the former chief minister has no real answers to questions on the "sheesh mahal", condition of roads and water availability.

The BJP, the Lok Sabha MP noted, has mostly fought on collective leadership in state elections and won them more often than not.

On the charge that the BJP's first list of 29 candidates figured many candidates who joined it from different parties, he said the "vast majority of them have been with the BJP for a long time".

Under Modi, the BJP has grown and as a result, many people from different walks of life who started their career in other parties want to join it, he added.

Asked what makes him confident about his party's prospects in the polls which it won the last and the only time in 1993, he said, "Our vote share in Delhi for the assembly polls has caught up with the vote share we received in the Lok Sabha elections."

He pointed out the BJP's win in a host of assembly elections, noting that neither media nor surveys gave it much chance in Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Haryana and Maharashtra but it emerged victorious.

Though the BJP has often underperformed in state elections compared to national polls, the party has succeeded in arresting the decline to a large extent and even inverting the trend, as seen in the recent Maharashtra assembly elections.

Panda, however, declined to offer a number which the BJP hopes to win in the 70-member Delhi assembly. He did stress that it would be a "very comfortable" majority.

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)