‘Support for AAP grew after CM’S arrest’
NEW DELHI: The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Delhi convener Gopal Rai on Thursday said that the party was running an intense campaign for the Lok Sabha elections. He told Alok KN Mishra in an interview that AAP workers were unfazed by the action against the party’s top leadership, and were reaching out to thousands of households every day. Edited excerpts:
How is the AAP’S Lok
Sabha elections campaign progressing the absence of the party’s chief Arvind Kejriwal?
We are running a three-layered campaign. Firstly, “Jail Ka Jawab Vote Se”, under which 2,000 teams of party workers are working on the ground, and each team visits 25 households every day and urges people to vote against the arrest of chief minister Arvind Kejriwal. We have reached out to more than 600,000 households so far.
Secondly, candidates are holding padayatras and indoor meetings in each municipal ward daily. Thirdly, from April 16 we have started holding “Sankalp Sabha” programmes in which 200 meetings are being held across constituencies.
We had to redesign our campaign to ensure that people are able to express their outrage against the “political arrest” of the Delhi chief minister.
Yes, she will. She will also visit Punjab. She has been communicating messages from jail with the party.
What has been the impact of Kejriwal’s arrest on the party?
The arrest has, in fact, come as a blow to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Millions of people voted for the AAP in the assembly elections. But they shifted loyalties in the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha polls, thinking the AAP did not have a big stake. However, the arrest has turned things around. Even the BJP leaders who have met me [since the arrest] told me that Kejriwal should not have been arrested.
The people are not aware of a single work done by the seven BJP parliamentarians in Delhi, but they are well aware of the work by the Kejriwal government. After Kejriwal’s arrest, people have decided to support the AAP even in the Lok Sabha elections.
When the BJP workers meet people, they are asked why Kejriwal was put in jail, because it is Kejriwal who is providing free 24x7 electricity and free water.
Is the AAP’S alliance with the Congress helping?
The cumulative vote share of the two parties in Delhi was 40% in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. The day the alliance was formed, the political equations changed. In the last two Lok Sabha polls, the
AAP and the Congress contested separately and lost due to a triangular contest with the BJP. The alliance has given much confidence to the workers from the two parties that they can defeat the BJP together. The BJP had to drop six of its seven sitting MPS due to this.
Is the AAP open to forming an alliance with the Congress for the 2025 assembly elections as well?
The results of the Lok Sabha elections will set the stage for further course of action. Currently, it is a question whether democracy will survive in this country or not. It is not known if the BJP will allow assembly elections in Delhi in 2025 if it comes back to power at the Centre. Everything depends on the Lok Sabha polls. In 2025, the BJP will not get a single out of 70 seats in Delhi, if elections are held.