NEW DELHI: With
Arvind Kejriwal
, the face of Aam Aadmi Party, in jail and the fate of governance in Delhi under a cloud, the party's
campaign
for Lok Sabha elections is set to face a massive leadership challenge in the absence of its star campaigner and strategist. The fact that the
AAP
leadership has been going all out to assert that the govt will be run by the AAP supremo from jail only reaffirms how brand Kejriwal is synonymous with the party.
In AAP, decision making has mostly been a centralised affair with Kejriwal seen as the one steering the ship since the party first formed a 49-day minority govt supported by Congress in 2013-14. Even during elections, Kejriwal was the star campaigner with other leaders in tow as he went about holding roadshows and town hall meetings where he vociferously held up the Delhi model as a promising development alternative.
The days ahead will be crucial for the second line of leaders like Gopal Rai, Atishi, Saurabh Bhardwaj, Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann and Rajya Sabha MPs Sandeep Pathak and Raghav Chadha, among others, to give direction to the campaign while juggling with governance issues in Delhi.
The party’s election campaign is set to be hinged on Kejriwal’s arrest. A day after his
arrest
, AAP workers protested across the country and leaders compared it to an "undeclared emergency-like situation”.
Friday was marked by numerous press conferences and statements from AAP leaders with Pathak claiming that BJP was trying to finish opposition parties by sending their leaders to jail.
AAP’s Delhi convener Gopal Rai told TOI that the days ahead would see pan-India protests against the arrest. He asserted that Kejriwal was still the face of the party and its campaign and claimed that following his arrest, they were witnessing a groundswell of sympathy. Also, with Delhi going to polls on May 25 and Punjab on June 1, Rai feels there is still a lot of time to strategise the campaign.
He said the INDIA bloc would be critical in mobilising support, adding that a joint movement against Kejriwal’s arrest would be soon announced with the alliance members. Rai also said that on Saturday, all AAP MLAs, councillors, office-bearers and INDIA bloc representatives will take a pledge to save democracy.
English (US) ·