Charkhi Dadri, August 8: Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann on Wednesday urged the people of Haryana to vote for the AAP in the upcoming assembly polls as he highlighted the "development" done in Delhi and Punjab.

The Haryana assembly polls are due later this year and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has announced that it will contest all the 90 seats in the state, claiming that the people want change and are looking at the AAP with great hope. Though the AAP has contested several polls in Haryana, it has yet to taste electoral success in the state. Haryana Assembly Elections 2024: Give AAP a Chance in State Polls, Says Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann.

Addressing a gathering, Mann called party national convener and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal 'Haryana Ka Laal' (son of Haryana) and said he was known for his honesty. Haryana Assembly Elections 2024: AAP Will Develop Haryana on the Lines of Delhi, Says Arvind Kejriwal’s Wife Sunita Kejriwal.

The people of Haryana should be proud of the fact that Haryana's son Arvind Kejriwal, born in Siwani village, changed the direction of the politics of the country, said Mann.

Kejriwal is a rare leader who said that the people of Delhi should vote for him only if they were satisfied with his work. "Can anyone else say this? Only a person who has done work can say this," said Mann. But now he has been put in jail, Mann said as he lashed out at the BJP government at the Centre.

Kejriwal was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on March 21 in a money laundering case linked to the alleged excise policy scam. The Supreme Court granted him interim bail but he is still in jail as the CBI had arrested him in a related matter.

Mann said the AAP government in Delhi has transformed the city's schools and hospitals while in Punjab, "90 per cent of the households are getting zero electricity bills". The AAP government gave more than 44,000 government jobs to the people of Punjab in the last two and half years and all the jobs were given on merit.

Mann slammed political parties, including the Congress, the BJP and the INLD for doing "nothing" for the people of Haryana when they were in power. "The people of Haryana made many leaders (of rival parties) win... the leaders won but the people lost. Those leaders did nothing for the public except fill their own pockets," alleged Mann.

The Punjab CM said when the Congress government "harassed" the people of Haryana, the BJP came to power in the state but when the BJP harassed them even more, the Indian National Lok Dal won the polls and when the INLD too harassed them, the people voted for the BJP again. "Now the people of Haryana have a strong option which is the Aam Aadmi Party," said Mann.

He also took a dig at the ruling BJP in Haryana, asking why former chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar was replaced by Nayab Singh Saini in March. "(Prime Minister Narendra) Modi ji has been saying that there is a need for a double engine. Why was the engine changed? Did Manohar Lal Khattar's engine break down? The country needs a new engine, not a double engine," said Mann. The BJP uses the term "double engine" to refer to it being in power at the Centre as well as in a state.

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