Arvind Kejriwal vs Manoj Tiwari as Hardeep Singh Puri Hints at BJP's Delhi Chief for CM Post

New Delhi: With Delhi Assembly elections slated for next year, the poll bugle has been sounded in the national capital as union minister Hardeep Singh Puri said that Manoj Tiwari will be the BJP’s chief ministerial candidate.

Senior BJP leader Puri said the party will fight elections under the leadership of Tiwari, who is also the saffron party’s Delhi chief.

“We are going to fight Assembly elections under leadership of Manoj Tiwari and we will rest only after making him the chief minister,” Puri was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.

However, he later clarified in a tweet that he meant that the BJP would win with a huge mandate under Tiwari's leadership and the party has not announced any chief ministerial candidate.

On Saturday, Puri had said that he has no intentions to run for the post of Delhi chief minister.

"The party (BJP) has a well-defined leadership in Delhi. There are people who have grown up in the city. I have no such intentions (to run for the CM's post). I am happy where I am," he replied to a question during a press conference.

The BJP had placed its bets on Harsh Vardhan during the 2013 assembly elections, while former IPS officer Kiran Bedi was its CM face in 2015.

Puri also denounced the Arvind Kejriwal government in Delhi for its "obstructionist irresponsible attitude on every issue pertaining to the welfare of the people in the national capital".

Inaugurating a portal which will 'define and delineate' the boundaries of 1,731 unauthorised colonies here using satellite imagery, he claimed that the AAP government kept delaying the work on various pretexts.

"The same obstructionist attitude is evident as far as Delhi's urban mobility infrastructure is concerned. Instead of strengthening the existing urban mobility infrastructure like metro and buses in Delhi, the local government is resorting to election gimmicks," he said.

"We are not against offering benefits to citizens, but firmly believe that if DTC had a full fleet of 11,000 buses instead of just 4,000, the benefit to the citizens would have been more pronounced," Puri said.