New Delhi, August 12: Hitting back at Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman for her statement on freebies, Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said on Friday that the BJP is making fun of AAP's welfare schemes by calling them 'Free ki Revdi' (freebies).

Sisodia said that two models of governance are being followed in the country. One is the 'Dostiwadi' model of governance, where people in power waive taxes worth crores of their super rich friends and call it development; the other model is honest use of taxpayers' money to open the schools, provide free education to chidren, free electricity to the citizens, free bus travel for women and pension to the elderly people. Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal Says ‘Free Education, Healthcare Not Freebies, but Efforts Towards Making India No 1’.

The 'Dostwadi' model of the BJP waives loans of worth lakhs of crores of rupees of its friends, but deprives the common man of facilities like health and education, the AAP leader said.

"They (BJP) practice 'Dostwadi' politics, while we do politics for the common people," Sisodia said during a press briefing here. He also said that Sitharaman tried to scare the people by claiming that spending government money on public welfare will destroy India, as he urged the Centre to invest in citizens.

"I want to ask madam (Sitharaman) to study the schemes and models of other countries and see how they have become rich economically by providing free schemes to the public," he said.

Sisodia added that every developed nation invests in its citizens, which in return develops the country further. "The BJP terms the welfare schemes for the public as 'Free ki Revdi', but we call them investing in our people," he said. Sisodia also claimed that the Aam Aadmi Party-led Delhi government is revenue surplus despite its free schemes for the people, while the BJP-run states are in deficit.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Aug 12, 2022 10:04 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).