The Aam Aadmi Party appears to have taken the lead in launching its campaign for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections in Delhi. Last month, its convener and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal started a door-to-door campaign to reach out to the voters. The campaign was also aimed at raising funds for the party. In his interaction with voters, Kejriwal urged them to consider his government’s track record and donate freely and voluntarily.
The party has constituted 3,000 teams comprising AAP volunteers and in the next three to four months, it aims to visit every house in the national capital in order to highlight the work done by the Delhi government. While launching the door-to-door campaign, Kejriwal also declared that the party would educate the voters on the failures of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Central government and the previous Congress regimes in the state.
Besides this outreach, the AAP has already declared that Atishi Marlena would be its candidate for the East Delhi Lok Sabha seat, thereby becoming the first party to declare a candidate. The young Atishi was the party’s face even before the AAP stormed to power in the national capital in 2015. The articulate Atishi was a regular on television channels, strongly putting forward the party’s views.
Her candidature, however, was marred by an unwanted controversy when it was noticed that she had dropped her surname Marlena from hoardings and other election campaign material. She reportedly did that because it was felt that her surname sounded “foreign” and that would prove to be a negative factor while seeking votes.
Coming back to the AAP’s door-to-door campaign, while it is too early to say if the voter outreach-cum-fund raiser has succeeded or not, but the first day’s show would not have encouraged Kejriwal. His appeal to voters to donate freely did not find too many takers with most only pledging to donate, although the Chief Minister went armed with a receipt book to receive the donations. The party has also been tightlipped about how much funds they have been able to raise so far.
But the AAP is clearly playing to its strength. Its sledgehammer performance in 2015 when the party won 67 of the 70 seats in the Delhi Assembly, a showing unparalleled in the history of any election in the country, came on the back of a similar door-to-door campaign by Kejriwal and others. Then a relative novice in politics, Kejriwal and his team reached out to the voters by visiting their houses while the BJP and the Congress relied more on traditional forms of campaigning such as road shows and rallies.
The announcement of Atishi as its canditate from the East Delhi seat is also because this constituency is seen by the AAP as a safe seat. While there are many colonies where affluent people live, East Delhi constituency is largely inhabited by the working class and Purvanchalis, or East Indians. And they form the backbone of the AAP support base.
Not to be left behind, the Congress, too, is in the midst of its own door-to-door campaign. In fact, the Congress started this exercise even before the AAP did with party president Ajay Maken launching the ‘Lok Sampark Abhiyan’ (public outreach campaign) at Sant Ravidas Chowk in central Delhi.
While the party has two primary opponents, the AAP and the BJP, it is interesting to note that Maken chose to target the AAP more than the BJP at the launch of its drive. The Congress leader attacked
the Kejriwal government for “the false promises and non-performance”.
The BJP, on the other hand, is yet to begin its campaign. If at all, the party has started off on a wrong note with Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari cut up with party parliamentarian Ramesh Bidhuri. The MP has been served a show-casue notice for some uncharitable remarks against Purvanchalis during a function to mark Sardar Patel’s birth anniversary on October 31.
While the Lok Sabha elections are still four-five months away and it is too early to say which way the wind is blowing, clearly there does not seem to be any enthusiasm among the voters so far. Both the AAP and the Congress voter outreach has been fairly low-key. But a repeat of 2015 is highly unlikely.
H Khogen Singh
Resident Editor, New Delhi
Email: khogensingh@newindianexpress.com