Express News Service
AHMEDABAD: Delhi Chief Minister and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) national convener Arvind Kejriwal changed his electoral strategy in Gujarat on Sunday and targeted Congress more than the BJP.
He urged the voters not to waste votes on the grand old party and that AAP is a bigger party than the Congress.
Kejriwal is on a two-day visit to Gujarat. On Sunday, he administered oath to the newly appointed office-bearers of the Aam Aadmi Party in Ahmedabad.
He said the Aam Aadmi Party can form the next government in Gujarat if the party bags the votes of those voters who are angry with the ruling BJP but who do not want to vote for the opposition Congress.
Addressing a gathering of 7,000 newly-appointed office-bearers of the Aam Aadmi Party in Ahmedabad, Kejriwal said the Congress exists only on paper in Gujarat, while AAP’s organisation has become much bigger than the main opposition party “with lakhs of people joining the AAP in a short time”.
Claiming that a BJP delegation from Gujarat which visited Delhi recently has failed to find any shortcomings in schools and hospitals there, the Delhi chief minister asked office-bearers of AAP to explain to voters the good work done by the party in Delhi and Punjab while seeking their support in Gujarat.
“I can say with certainty that today AAP has a much bigger organisation in Gujarat compared to Congress, which has been present in the state for so many years. Congress exists only on paper. It is the party without office-bearers or workers while people are joining AAP in lakhs,” he said.
Kejriwal also claimed that AAP will become an organisation even bigger than BJP in Gujarat once its booth-level set-up is in place in a month.
He claimed the BJP pays people to work for them but AAP workers cannot be bought with money as they are patriots.
“Tell voters that there is no point voting for Congress. Last time, people voted for Congress with great hope. But 57 Congress MLAs have left so far (in Gujarat). Ask people to not waste their votes by supporting Congress. Ensure that Congress does not get a single vote in the upcoming elections,” he said.
Kejriwal said AAP workers should try to persuade those voters to support AAP who are angry with the ruling BJP but do not want to vote for Congress.
“They ended up voting for BJP (for the lack of option).
If you convince them to support AAP, then nothing can stop us from forming a government in Gujarat,” he said.
There are also a large number of people who are angry with the BJP, but they do not want to vote for Congress.
They hate Congress, but as they have no option they vote for BJP.
All such people who are angry with BJP and do not vote for Congress should vote for us, he said.
“If you get us votes from these two sections of people, then I can say with certainty that you will form the next government. We are not working to sit in the Opposition, but to form a government,” he added.
Taking potshots at Congress, Kejriwal said the opposition party is running no election campaign in Gujarat whereas the BJP is busy with only one agenda of “abusing AAP.”
Kejriwal said only AAP shares people’s grief, listens to their problems and talks about their children’s future and about schools, hospitals, jobs, water, electricity, and roads.
A BJP delegation from Gujarat which recently visited Delhi to find shortcomings in schools and hospitals failed to pick any, he claimed.
“They found no shortcomings. They had to cancel their press conference that was organised to expose Kejriwal. They said they will hold a press conference in Gujarat, but did not hold any such interaction,” he said.
Kejriwal said a “journalist” from Gujarat went to Delhi to “expose” the AAP’s claims of better schools and hospitals but ended up accepting good works done there.
He asked AAP workers to download the video of the report (of the journalist) and show it to the voters during campaigning.
BJP leader and former Gujarat minister Ramanlal Vora had last week said that AAP’s claims about the much-touted Delhi model of development are hollow.
Vora was in Delhi to expose the claims made by the Aam Aadmi Party with a BJP delegation.
The Gujarat BJP team, accompanied by Delhi BJP leader Manoj Tiwari, had visited a mohalla Clinic and a government-run school in the national capital.
Kejriwal’s targeting of the Congress raises many questions, such as whether Kejriwal wants to replace the Congress in Gujarat and eye to contest upcoming assembly elections in the state as the main opponent of the BJP?
Political experts also opine that irrespective of the next assembly election result, the AAP is likely to replace as the BJP’s chief opponent in the state.
In the last assembly elections, the Congress party had performed better than in 2012 and the BJP’s seats had been reduced to less than 100 for the first time in the last two decades.
Congress had won 61 seats in 2012, it won 77 out of 182 seats in 2017. The number of BJP’s seats reduced from 115 to 99.
However, Congress has not been able to maintain the edge it had got in the election. Worse, the condition of Congress has deteriorated since then, with many leaders leaving the party.
Before the elections in 2017, 15 Congress MLAs had left Congress.
It also included veteran Shankar Singh Vaghela. After 2017, by-elections were held on seven seats, out of which BJP won four and Congress three. In 2020, by-elections were held on eight seats in which all the seats were won by BJP.
And at present, the number of BJP’s MLAs is 111. Meanwhile, 13 former and current MLAs have left the Congress party since 2017. The major name among these exits was Hardik Patel.
On the other, the graph of the AAP is on the rise. In February last year, the AAP had an unexpected success in Surat Municipal Corporation and won 27 seats there.
(With PTI Inputs)
