Following his ‘vipassana’ (meditation) journey to Hoshiarpur, Punjab, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Arvind Kejriwal caused a stir in the political community. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) criticized him for encircling himself with a large cavalcade.
Kejriwal was heavily criticized by all parties for taking a large cavalcade after the BJP thrashed him in the Delhi assembly election. AAP Rajya Sabha MP Swati Maliwal compared it to the protection of US President Donald Trump. “Kejriwal, who criticises the whole world for VIP culture, is today roaming around with a security cover bigger than Donald Trump,” she wrote in a post on X.
Kejriwal “moves like a maharaja,” according to BJP member Manjinder Singh Sirsa, who is currently a minister in the Delhi cabinet led by Chief Minister Rekha Gupta. “Arvind Kejriwal, who once pretended to be a common man in a WagonR, now moves in a lavish convoy of bulletproof Land Cruisers, over 100 Punjab Police commandos, jammers and ambulances like a VIP Maharaja all for Vipassana, a retreat meant for peace. If power was his test, he has failed miserably. AAP’s truth is out, deception, hypocrisy, and VIP arrogance at its peak,” he wrote on X.
Congress criticized the AAP chief not far behind. Kejriwal’s opponent in the New Delhi seat, Sandeep Dikshit, charged that the AAP leader had become accustomed to a “pompous and lavish lifestyle.” “I have been saying for 10 years that he is greedy for power. When he used to get votes on the basis of simplicity, even then, we used to say that his simplicity was just a pretence… He has become so used to the extravagance that comes with power that he has 100 vehicles in his convoy to accompany him for a meditation retreat,” Dikshit was quoted by the news agency as saying.
The meditation course at the Dhamma Dhaja Vipassana Centre started on Wednesday, and former Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and his wife Sunita are in Hoshiarpur, Punjab. Over the next ten days, the pair will be attending the course. Kejriwal was criticized because of the size of his cavalcade. The AAP chief was escorted by the cavalcade, which included bulletproof cars and over 100 Punjab Police officers, according to a report. Late Tuesday evening, Kejriwal and his spouse reached the Forest Rest House in Chohal, which is roughly 14 kilometers from Hoshiarpur. They then proceeded to the center in Anandgarh, which is located in the Hoshiarpur district close to Mehlanwali.
