General elections 2019: BJP's Manoj Tiwari stands in queue to cast his vote in Delhi
Delhi BJP chief and Bhojpuri cinema actor Manoj Tiwari, who is looking for re-election from North East Delhi seat, today took a swipe at his rivals Sheila Dikshit and Dilip Pandey over what he claimed was their "lack of vision".
"In our culture it is said you should aim high, think big, but I don't know why these people want to go back to small vision. Don't know why they are narrow-minded," Manoj Tiwari told NDTV, showing his inked finger while surrounded by supporters who also flashed the victory sign. "I am proud of the work I have done in the last five years. My heart is big, my work is big, my vision is big," he said.
The state chiefs of the three main parties - Congress, BJP and Aam Aadmi Party - are fighting from a single constituency in North East Delhi.
Aam Aadmi Party's Delhi chief Dilip Pandey during his campaign had asked people not to vote for "bada aadmi (VIP)" but choose "aapna aadmi (your own people)", while former chief minister Sheila Dikshit, who ran the national capital for 15 years, had appealed to voters to judge her based on the developments that Delhi has seen over the years. She also heads the Congress in the national capital.
"When I was going to vote, while standing in queue, everyone looked excited. It was a good feeling to see that among all those people in the line, I was one of the candidates from here. If you took 100 people, the smile on the faces of 95 people suggested that they were already rooting for victory. It's a great feeling that you are the candidate and you are also the voter," said Mr Tiwari.
"In 2014, we came with hope. In 2019, we brought trust. I can see expressions of that trust on people's faces. For us, 2019 is very important because we won the trust of the people of this country," Mr Tiwari added.
The actor who has done 75 Bhojpuri films and two Hindi ones in the last decade was poked at by Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal with his "naachta bahaut acha hai (dances good)" comments last week.
Annoyed by the comments, Mr Tiwari had said Mr Kejriwal had "directly insulted the people of Purvanchal" who will "show him what the consequences". Purvanchalis, or people from east Uttar Pradesh and west Bihar, make up a big pie of the vote base in North East Delhi.
The BJP had taken all the seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi in 2014.