Gautam Gambhir said he has asked the party workers not to indulge in negative politics (File)
Former India cricketer Gautam Gambhir, the BJP's new recruit, on Thursday took a sharp jibe at Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal over his string of apologies to a host of political leaders to get rid of defamation cases filed against him. Mr Gambhir, who is contesting the Lok Sabha elections as the party's candidate in East Delhi, also said the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief had a very negative vision.
"He (Kejriwal) has a very negative vision. First, he criticises the party, then says sorry to them. Now, at this time, he is out with apologies. We have been watching how desperately he is trying to join hands with the party that he used to criticise and call corrupt earlier," he was quoted by news agency IANS.
The AAP and the Congress earlier this week announced their candidates after over a month of back and forth on forming an alliance in the national capital. While the Congress had said that it was ready to contest in only three out of seven seats in Delhi, the AAP was demanding alliance in Punjab and Haryana as well. Both the parties blamed each other for scuttling the proposed alliance.
Arvind Kejriwal had apologised to Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) leader Bikram Singh Majithia, BJP leaders Nitin Gadkari and Arun Jaitley and Congress leader Kapil Sibal to close the defamation cases the leaders filed against him.
Mr Gambhir said he has asked BJP workers not to indulge in negative politics.
"We would not be doing the politics of criticism that others are indulging in...we would not be doing that. There should be a difference between BJP workers and other parties' workers... And the difference would be of fulfilling the promises of development being made to the people," he said.
Mr Gambhir claimed Mr Kejriwal had no vision for the country and his sole agenda was to defeat Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party chief Amit Shah.
Gautam Gambhir, known for his knock in the 2011 world cup finals, had been a BJP supporter and had often sided with the party on Twitter. He last month joined the party officially. He is taking on AAP's Atishi and Congress's Arvinder Singh Lovely in East Delhi.
The BJP had won all the seven seats in the 2014 elections.
Voting is scheduled to take place in Delhi on May 12 in the sixth phase of the Lok Sabha elections.
With inputs from IANS