AAP’s headless campaign shows no sign of taking off

AHMEDABAD/RAJKOT: At a stone’s throw away from Aam Admi Party’s camp at Rajkot’s Nana Mavu aC ho wk, two back-to-back rallies by the opponents — chief minister Vijay Rupani (for BJP) and Patidar leader Hardik Patel (for Congress), happened during the last week of November.

But, little movement was seen in the AA P’ s camp at the time the rallies were being held.

This, in a nutshell, presents scenarios of AAP’s low-key campaign in an election where the BJP is trying to retain its 22-yearold rule.

Cut to Ahmedabad. Carrying brooms and sporting ‘Nehru caps’ with slogan ‘main aam aadmi hoon’, a group led by Amjad Pathan goes door to door in Bapurnagar constituency promising to “bring change”.

“Ek vaar mat AAP ne, pachi jovo Gujarat ne (elect AAP once to see a new Gujarat)” they chant.

As Pathan, AAP’s Bapunagar candidate, makes an appeal to voters to press the button for ‘broom’, others hand over twopage leaflets, the party’s election manifesto for the constituency.

Bapunagar, which has a significant population of diamond polishers and other workers, is one of the 30 seats Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal’s party is contesting.

Until March, the party was ready to contest all 182 seats.

Kejriwal was among the early birds to kickstart the campaign from Hindu pilgrimage town of So mn at hand addressed Pat ida rs in north Gujarat, the epicentre of the OBC agitation.

He visited Gujarat four times between July and November 2016. But the plans changed after disappointing results in Punjab and the drubbing in Goa.

The party also lost its most credible face, Dr Kanu Kalsaria, who is now contesting from this seat as an Independent, saying his social organisation Sadb havn aM an ch wanted togo him solo.