Kejriwal plans nation-wide expansion of fight against graft

Fresh from the formation of the AAP government in Delhi, anti-graft crusader and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal today said he wanted to take the fight against corruption nationwide.

''Citizens of Delhi have given us an opportunity and we will keep fighting against corruption. We have to pass the Lokpal Bill and the Swaraj Bill. I now want to take this fight against corruption from Delhi to the entire nation,'' he said.

Kejriwal, who is looking to field AAP candidates in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, also stood by his earlier stance of holding an open session of Delhi assembly at Ramlila Maidan to pass the Jan Lokpal Bill.

The AAP, which has already stated its intention to fight the Jaipur municipal election, has also set up activist groups in most states with an eye on the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections.

The Aam Aadmi Party leader, however, downplayed the allocation of Toyota Innova cars to all other ministers, except himself.

A number of ministers, including Manish Sisodia, Rakhi Birla and Saurabh Bhardwaj, came to Delhi Assembly complex in official cars.

Kejriwal said his party never said its ministers will not use official cars.

"We never said anything about not using cars. We said we will not use red beacon cars," Kejriwal said.

The acceptance of official cars by the ministers came a day after the AAP government won a trust vote in the assembly with the Congress' support.

Kejriwal himself, who initially refused to accept a bungalow, finally decided to move into a five-bedroom duplex house in Delhi. ''Now, I will live with my family in the five-bedroom house. Earlier, I was living in a four-bedroom apartment, that's the only difference,'' he said.

Kejriwal further said he will use the other five-bedroom house offered to him as his office.

As a first step, the Dakshina Kannada unit of AAP has taken up the issue of the proposed projects such as the diversion of River Nethravathi from Yettinahole and the establishment of a thermal power plant at Niddodi in Moodbidri taluk of the district.

The AAP will oppose both, as according to spokesperson S Nandagopal, the proposed river diversion will cause depletion in the water level of River Nethravathi, which in turn will have an impact on the eco-systems in coastal Karnataka and the Western Ghats region.

The AAP unit is also challenging the mandatory Aadhar that some LPG agencies in the district are insisting for LPG connections to households despite a Supreme Court order that Aadhar is not mandatory for LPG connections.