Anurag Thakur says even London, Singapore jails don't give 'massages' in dig at 'Kejriwal model'

Union minister Anurag Thakur on Thursday took a dig at Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, saying he wanted to make Delhi like London and Singapore but even those cities did not provide massage facilities in their jails.Thakur was referring to a purported leaked video that showed Delhi minister Satyendar Jain getting a massage in his Tihar Jail cell.

Union minister Anurag Thakur on Thursday took a dig at Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, saying he wanted to make Delhi like London and Singapore but even those cities did not provide ''massage facilities'' in their jails.

Thakur was referring to a purported leaked video that showed Delhi minister Satyendar Jain getting a massage in his Tihar Jail cell. Videos that purportedly showed Jain taking a massage also showed a TV inside his prison cell, and showed the minister taking visitors in his cell. Campaigning for BJP candidates in Vasant Kunj, Palam and Madhu Vihar areas ahead of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) elections, Thakur said it was the first time since Independence that the prisons minister of a state was behind bars and yet Kejriwal did not remove him from his Cabinet.

Jain held multiple portfolios, including the prisons department, prior to May 31 arrest in a money laundering case.

''Kejriwal said he will make Delhi like London and Singapore, is there so much pollution in London and Singapore? Does the education minister do liquor corruption there, does the health minister get massages in jail there?'' he said.

On several occasions, Kejriwal had promised to develop world-class road and transportation infrastructure in Delhi and change it like London and Singapore. ''See Delhi's Kejriwal model, health minister gets massage in jail,'' Thakur said.

Thakur also alleged that the Kejriwal government's ''appeasement politics'' had been exposed as it was paying salaries to maulvis of mosques and not priests in temples, gurudwaras and churches in Delhi.

He urged Delhi residents to vote for BJP candidates in MCD to free the city and save it from ''corruption and stalled development'' under Kejriwal.

The BJP intensified its campaigning for the MCD polls with nearly a dozen of its top leaders and Union ministers holding roadshows and street-corners meetings.

Union minister Dharmendra Pradhan, campaigning in Greater Kailash, said, ''I assure Delhiites that if you elect BJP candidates, Delhi will get increased benefits of the Centre's development schemes.'' West Bengal BJP MP Locket Chatterjee said it was BJP activists who helped everyone, including those from other parts of the country living in Delhi, during the Covid pandemic.

She asked people from West Bengal settled in the national capital to vote for the BJP to ensure a better Delhi and India.

Delhi BJP MPs Harsh Vardhan, Ramvir Singh Bidhuri and Pravesh Sahib Singh also campaigned in different parts of the city.

Nand Kishore Gurjar, the BJP MLA from Loni in neighbouring Ghaziabad, took part in the campaigning in the trans-Yamuna area.

''In Uttar Pradesh, under the BJP's double engine government, all-round development is taking place while the benefits of public welfare schemes of the Centre are being received in the entire state,'' he said It is the ''misfortune'' of Delhi that there is a chief minister whose obstructionist politics was preventing the people of Delhi from the central enjoying benefits.

Elections to the 250-ward MCD will be held on December 4.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)