State AAP leaders to rev up party’s Delhi poll campaign

The corridors of power in Punjab are expected to wear a deserted look for nearly a month from now onwards. Reason: All top leaders of the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) will be camping in Delhi to support the party in its crucial struggle to retain power. Elections to the Delhi Assembly were announced today and are scheduled for February 5.

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The AAP leadership in Delhi is pegging a lot of hope on the party’s Punjab unit and its leaders to intensify the poll campaign. Already, a number of ministers and senior party leaders are in Delhi, campaigning there for AAP Delhi candidates. Many of the 94 MLAs of the party have been assigned duties for door-to-door campaigning in Delhi- quite reminiscent of the 2015 Delhi Assembly polls, when the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) was in power in the state and had contested the elections in the national capital. The then Deputy CM and SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal had led his party leaders in the campaign then. It is another matter that the party drew a blank in those elections. It remains to be seen if the beleaguered SAD will throw its hat in the ring this time too.

Punjab AAP leaders are being led by state unit chief Aman Arora, Finance Minister Harpal Cheema and Speaker Kultar Singh Sandhwan for the Delhi campaign. Even Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann will be campaigning there for his party, as and when he can spare time from his duties here.

From showcasing how their party reversed the trend in governance by buying a private power plant while public assets were sold to private entities in the past, to telling the voters of Delhi about the AAP government’s achievements of providing 48,000 jobs, 300 units of free power every month, running Aam Aadmi Clinics, etc, these leaders will be wooing voters. Besides, they would also counter the political narrative that the rival Congress leaders from Punjab have been trying to build in the national capital of the “unfulfilled” promises of AAP, especially for giving honorarium to women.

It is because of the Delhi election that the state government has decided against holding a winter session of the Vidhan Sabha, which they were initially planning to hold this week. Now, the Budget session of the Vidhan Sabha will be held next month.

Initially, a meeting of the Cabinet was also planned for this week, since only five Cabinet meetings were held last year. With party leadership and ministers being busy in the Delhi elections now, it is not certain when the Cabinet will meet next.