Kejriwal renews attack on Modi

New Delhi (PTI): In a boxing match, a player sometimes fends off the opponent, sometimes defends, and then, at the apt moment, he attacks.

As momentum gathers for the 2019 general election, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal seems to be playing the political game just as carefully, say leaders of his Aam Aadmi Party and political observers.

In 2017, following AAP’s poor performance in Punjab and the BJP’s sweep in Uttar Pradesh, Kejriwal consciously decided to minimise his attacks on his bete-noire, Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

He continued with the strategy for a little more than a year. But with the BJP suffering a string of electoral defeats and anti-incumbency sentiment slowly “setting in” against the BJP government at the Centre, Kejriwal has renewed his attacks on Modi with the same level of acerbity as before.

“When Kejriwal changed strategy in 2017, post Uttar Pradesh poll results, the charisma of Modi was intact.

You don't attack a leader who is popular because that will backfire. But when he is becoming unpopular, change the strategy,” a senior AAP leader said.

The rising fuel prices that has resulted in anger among the people, the recent defeats in the bypolls and the opposition banding together against the BJP have prompted the change, he said. On May 31, the day of the bypoll results in which the BJP won one parliamentary seat and one assembly seat of 14 constituencies, Kejriwal posted a carefully timed tweet in praise of former prime minister Manmohan Singh, the target of his anti-graft campaign during the 2013 Delhi Assembly polls and the Lok Sabha polls the following year.

Taking a swipe at Modi, Kejriwal said people were missing an "educated prime minister" like Manmohan Singh.

“…It’s dawning on people now that the PM should be educated," Kejriwal tweeted, posting a Wall Street Journal article on the falling rupee.