Arvind Kejriwal, the chief minister of Delhi, issued a letter on Thursday asking for the addition of pictures of Goddess Lakshmi and Lord Ganesha on banknotes, one day after making an appeal to Prime Minister Modi. Arvind Kejriwal, the chief minister of Delhi, issued a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday pleading with him to allow the depictions of Goddess Lakshmi and Lord Ganesha on banknotes on behalf of 130 crore Indians.
“I have written a letter to the Prime Minister, and have requested him on behalf of 130 crore Indians that the Indian currency notes should have photos of Lakshmi and Ganesha apart from that of Mahatma Gandhi,” Arvind Kejriwal stated in a tweet in Hindi.
मैंने प्रधानमंत्री जी को पत्र लिखकर 130 करोड़ भारतवासियों की ओर से निवेदन किया है कि भारतीय करेंसी पर महात्मा गांधी जी के साथ-साथ लक्ष्मी गणेश जी की तस्वीर भी लगाई जाए। pic.twitter.com/OFQPIbNhfu
— Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) October 28, 2022
“Tremendous support has been received on this issue. There is massive enthusiasm among the people and everyone wants this to be implemented immediately,” Kejriwal said in his letter. In the letter, Arvind Kejriwal further said that after 75 years of independence, the Indian economy is going through a very poor period and is classed as a developing country. “On the one hand, all countrymen need to work hard and on the other, we also need blessings of the deities so that our efforts bear fruit,” Kejriwal wrote.
This development takes place in the midst of a controversy surrounding the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader’s comment from two days prior, in which he connected the addition of images of the goddess Lakshmi and the god Ganesha to banknotes to India’s economic prosperity. In response to Arvind Kejriwal’s comments, the BJP criticised them as an ineffective attempt to conceal the “anti-Hindu face” of the AAP in light of the upcoming elections in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh, while the Delhi Congress demanded his resignation for “violating the secular principles of the constitution.”