Kejriwal to address event on Sunday, kick-start AAP’s Delhi poll campaign

Sunday’s Janata ki Adaalat at Jantar Mantar will be Kejriwal’s first public event since he stepped out of jail on September 13; Rai says party workers must prepare to defeat BJP on every seat; real Janata ki Adaalat will be held in February 2025: BJP

Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) national convener Arvind Kejriwal will address his first public event on Sunday since stepping out of jail on September 13. The event, titled Janata ki Adaalat, where Mr. Kejriwal is expected to kick-start his party’s campaign for the Delhi Assembly election, will be held at 11 a.m. at Jantar Mantar.

Senior AAP leader Dilip Pandey said all senior party leaders will be present at the event. “After receiving bail, Mr. Kejriwal decided to go to the people. Now they will decide whether the BJP has been successful in its attempts to break AAP or whether people still have faith in us.”

Addressing a congregation of mandal (division) in-charges and booth-level workers on Thursday, party general secretary Sandeep Pathak had said that the upcoming poll will be the most “fiercely” contested in India’s history.

“In the last Assembly election, (senior BJP leader and Union Home Minister) Amit Shah himself had to come and distribute pamphlets in the streets of Delhi. I guarantee that this time, along with Amit Shah, Prime Minister Narendra Modi too will be forced to distribute pamphlets door to door in Delhi,” he said.

The Delhi BJP responded by terming the event a “political farce”.

“A few workers will turn up at the event and hail Kejriwal’s resignation as the Chief Minister as a great sacrifice. But the real Janata ki Adaalat will happen in February next year (when the election is scheduled) in which the public will reject Kejriwal and AAP,” said Delhi BJP president Virendra Sachdeva.

‘Suprised them before’

Delhi Environment Minister and AAP’s Delhi convener Gopal Rai, who was also present at the meeting on Thursday, said, “When we formed the government in Delhi for the first time, the BJP called it ‘an accidental government’. But Arvind Kejriwal came back stronger, winning the subsequent election by a huge margin.”

He added that the BJP, taken aback by Mr. Kejriwal’s popularity, tasked the Lieutenant-Governor with stopping the development works of the elected government. “Then they jailed our senior leaders. But our work did not stop. When all their tricks failed, they jailed Kejriwal and demanded his resignation, saying the Delhi government couldn’t function from prison, and, when he refused to step down, labelled him ‘power hungry’,” said Mr. Rai.

“However, Kejriwal, after coming out of jail, announced his decision to resign and undergo an agni pariksha (trial by fire) to get a ‘certificate of honesty’ from the people of Delhi in the wake of corruption allegations levelled against him,” the party leader added. He urged the division in-charges to prepare for the poll and ensure that the BJP does not win even a single seat from Delhi.

Published - September 21, 2024 12:50 am IST