'Distributed salaries to Imams for 10 years': BJP calls out 'chunavi Hindu' Arvind Kejriwal

The Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) Delhi unit on Tuesday called out Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) national convenor Arvind Kejriwal in a post on X (formerly Twitter). The saffron party's post came a day after the AAP national convenor promised ₹18,000 every month to temple priests and gurudwara granthis in the run-up to the Delhi assembly elections. 

BJP Delhi went the Bollywood route to call out Kejriwal before asking some pertinent questions to the former Delhi CM. The saffron party shared a poster featuring Kejriwal as Chhote Pandit, the character essayed by Rajpal Yadav in the 2007 film Bhool Bhulaiyaa. 

In this poster titled 'Chunavi Hindu', Kejriwal is shown wearing rudraksha beads, flower garlands, and covered in vermillion with incense sticks tucked behind his ear. 

The poster shared by the BJP featured a verse: "Mandir jaana bas mere liye ek chhalaava, pujaariyon ka samman bas mera chunavi dikhawa, sanatan dharma ka maine humesha mazak banaya (Visiting temples for me is a cunning guise, respect for priests is an election façade, I’ve always ridiculed Sanatana Dharma)."

The BJP not only questioned Kejriwal on paying salaries to Imams for a decade but also his statement that he and his grandmother were not happy with the construction of Ram Mandir in Ayodhya. "Electoral Hindu Kejriwal. Who has been distributing salaries to Imams for 10 years? Who himself and his grandmother were not happy with the construction of Lord Ram's temple?" 

Amping up its attack, the BJP said Kejriwal's entire politics was "anti-Hindu" and questioned the AAP supremo on opening up liquor shops outside temples and gurudwaras in the national capital. "Now that the elections have come, he remembered the priests and the granthis?" the BJP asked. 

After the BJP's stinging attack against him, Kejriwal dared the saffron party to roll out such a scheme where it is in power instead of "abusing" him. 

"My question to them is—will the country benefit from abusing me?" he tweeted in Hindi. "You have governments in 20 states and have been in power in Gujarat for 30 years. Why haven’t you respected the priests and granthis there till now? Come on, do it now.”

Previously, former Delhi MP Parvesh Verma attacked Arvind Kejriwal, claiming that the  AAP's focus on priests and granthis is insincere. Verma claimed that around ₹100 crore of taxpayers' money has been spent to salaries to maulvis and their assistants.