QUEEN’S ROAD: For the 150-member team from Karnataka that was part of the Aam Aadmi Party’s high-voltage campaign for the Delhi Assembly elections, the past month has been hectic.
Most volunteers will be back in the city before the weekend, after finishing two major campaigns in Delhi, titled 'the calling campaign' and 'the buzz campaign'. Their work also involved going from door to door, asking people to vote for party president Arvind Kejriwal.
Karnataka contributed the third highest number of volunteers to the campaign and during their time there, the team handled arrangements for food, stay and supply of campaign material for around 2,000 volunteers from around the country. “About 60 members were working in Mangolpuri where Rakhi Birla is contesting. They went from door to door in other places like Ambedkar Nagar and Krishna Nagar, where Kiran Bedi is contesting,” said Mahantesh, the party's media coordinator for Karnataka.
City Express got to speak to some volunteers. Ravichandra S Nirbenchi, an advocate from Bengaluru, landed in Delhi on January 19. “Previously, I was the campaign manager in Chikkaballapur and now I am in the Mangolpuri area,” he said. Nirbenchi has undertaken 19 padayatras as well as other campaigns.
“It’s nice to see that even ordinary people like auto drivers are taking an interest in politics. I met several who expressed curiosity and faith in Kejriwal. People have assured us of an AAP victory and told us that we did not even have to campaign,” he told City Express.
“Once our volunteers were stuck in a spot where a major BJP rally was happening. When an argument was sparked off between the members of the two parties, people around us came to our aid and said that it was going to be ‘jhadu (broom - AAP’s campaign symbol) ka sarkaar’ this time," he said.
Adarsh Kumar H N, another volunteer who has been campaigning since November last year, is a student of Seshadripuram College. He took a train to Delhi as soon as his exams were over.
When not on the campaign trail, the volunteers spend time listening to music and holding discussions about various things. Referring to a funny campaign story, Adarsh said, “Once, around 25 of us were walking and campaigning at Connaught Place, while they (BJP workers) came in cars. The auto drivers connected with us instantly and defended us against the BJP workers who called us ‘bhagode.’” Bhagode is Hindi for 'ditchers.'
Vijay Kumar, an entrepreneur from Bengaluru, has been camping in Delhi since January 22 and canvassed at Connaught Place and Mongolpuri.
“The ground level response has been great for us, whereas rallies by other parties are not even attracting their own workers,” he said.
Counting of votes is slated for February 10 and the results will be out by February 11.