New Delhi: Virtually sounding Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) campaign bugle for the forthcoming Delhi Assembly elections, Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani on August 10 said the Bill to grant statehood to the national capital would be introduced in the current Parliament session and justified the recently issued controversial Delhi Master Plan guidelines.

"The Statehood Bill will be introduced in this session of Parliament," Advani said at the Party's "Parivartan Rally" a day after Congress' "August Kranti Rally" and hoped that the entire House will support it.

"Delhi should get Statehood and it is a part of our manifesto," the Deputy Prime Minister said about the issue that is going to be major poll plank for all parties in the Assembly elections.

He said the Home Ministry had prepared the draft of the Bill.

Avoiding any direct criticism of the Opposition party despite Sonia Gandhi's severe attack against the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government on August 9, he asked people to throw out the Sheila Dikshit government from Delhi to change the capital's "shape".

A lot of politicking has already been witnessed over the statehood issue with Dikshit even alleging that the Central government was delaying its introduction while BJP's Delhi unit president Madan Lal Khurana maintaining it would be brought in the current session.

PTI