Mumbai: Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) convener Arvind Kejriwal on Sunday alleged that the Congress in Gujarat is largely present only on paper and asked party workers not to cast any votes in favour of the party in the assembly polls to be held later this year.
Kejriwal, who is on a two-day visit to Gujarat from July 3, was speaking at an event in Ahmedabad’s Nikol area, where nearly 7,000 office-bearers recently appointed for the elections attended the swearing-in ceremony to officially join the party.
“The huge crowd you are seeing here is of the new office bearers of Gujarat. Today 6,958 office bearers are joining AAP in Gujarat. This is in addition to the thousands of party workers who have joined us and those thousands and lakhs of people who have blessed us. This only reflects the overwhelming support that AAP is getting in Gujarat at a rapid pace,” Kejriwal, who is the chief minister of Delhi, said.
On June 8, the AAP dissolved its Gujarat unit – retaining only Gopal Italia’s post of state chief – declaring that the move was part of its new strategy ahead of the elections. After releasing two lists, the party on June 30 announced 6,098 candidates for the state unit.
The party is trying to emerge as the third front in the state elections, which are primarily a bipolar contest between the Congress and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
However, this is not the party’s first attempt to contest elections in the state. The party had made efforts to contest the 2017 elections but later backed down saying the time was not right.
“As an organisation, we have become bigger than Congress in Gujarat. The Congress exists largely on paper here. We will have our booth level organisation in place next month. By then, we will have built an organisation bigger than the BJP in Gujarat,” he said.
“We have to reach households in Gujarat and tell them about our work in Delhi and Punjab; how we have provided electricity at lower rates and provided free education. We also have to tell people that it’s no use voting for Congress. Last time, they put their faith in Congress and you can see today how many MLAs have left them. The office-bearers of AAP have to ensure that not a single vote is cast for the Congress in the assembly elections,” he added.
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