World Cities Summit (WCS), which kicks off July 31 in Singapore, has become a topic of debate between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). While Mayor of Surat city Hemali Boghawala will participate in the four-day conference, Lt Governor Vinai Kumar Saxena recently rejected AAP convenor Arvind Kejriwal’s request to attend the event.
While declining Kejriwal’s request, Governor Saxena said the conference was mainly for the Mayors of the city and that the Chief Minister of Delhi is not supposed to attend. However, AAP has claimed that this was all a way for the BJP-led centre to prevent AAP from presenting its government’s achievements on a global platform. AAP leaders have questioned Boghawala’s participation at WCS as she did not have much experience.
Leader of Opposition in Surat, AAP councillor Dharmesh Bhanderi, said that Kejriwal had emerged as a global leader and the Delhi government’s achievements have been recognized all over the world. He also said that Mayor Boghawala did not have any major experience as she has been in the post for only one-and-a-half years. Furthermore, he also praised the Delhi education model and said that the BJP themselves could not find any faults in the system.
Meanwhile, BJP leaders have claimed that Kejriwal had not been invited to the WCS. They say that the AAP supremo had nothing to showcase and would use this international platform to push the political agenda.
