AAP’s stars to descend in Delhi for campaign

NEW DELHI: Aam Aadmi Party on Wednesday named 15 leaders from Delhi and Punjab as the party’s star campaigners to seek votes for Lok Sabha candidates in Punjab, Haryana and Delhi. The number of campaigners may increase before elections are conducted on May 12 in Delhi.
The list includes chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, deputy CM Manish Sisodia, Delhi ministers Imran Hussain, Rajendera Pal Gautam, Kailash Gahlot, Gopal Rai and Satyendar Jain, Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh, Sangrur MP Bhagwant Mann and ND Gupta and Sushil Gupta.
The name of the party’s founder-member poet Kumar Vishwas is missing. He was not expected to be named as he had been attacking Kejriwal ever since he was not nominated to Rajya Sabha last year.
Even Chandni Chowk MLA Alka Lamba is absent from the list, perhaps because she had recently claimed having a rapprochement with the AAP leadership. “Since my name doesn’t feature in the list, I will campaign only in my assembly constituency,” Lamba said. Both Vishwas and Lamba had been star campaigners in all previous elections contested by the party.
While Punjab is the only stronghold of AAP outside Delhi, the list of campaigners has only one name from the state.
After announcing the names of candidates for Delhi’s seven Lok Sabha seats, AAP launched an aggressive campaign after Holi. Asked about an alliance with Congress, Delhi convener Gopal Rai said, “The party can take a decision only after Congress says that it is ready for an alliance. Currently, we are busy focusing on our poll campaign.”
AAP is going to keep an eye on its election campaign through seven emergency feedback teams, the identity of whose members will be kept a secret. Each team will have two members and they will not be local residents of the parliamentary constituencies where they’ll be stationed.
The feedback teams will work without associating themselves with other party workers. They will be empowered to carry out unannounced inspection of door-to-door campaigns, public meetings in parks, street plays and other public meetings organised by party functionaries, including MLAs and councilors. They will also inspect election offices of the party.
An AAP leader said that the teams will act like watchdogs to ensure that everybody engaged in campaigning gives their best. “The purpose of formation of the team was to ensure that leaders at the ground level stick to the campaign schedule given to them,” he added.
The teams will report to the central war room at AAP headquarters where plans will be made to rectify deficiencies. AAP has formed eight war rooms (one central and one in each Lok Sabha constituency) to monitor electioneering, connect with voters, coordination and devise other poll strategies. The central war room has a 15-member dedicated team.
Observers will be appointed in each of the seven Lok Sabha and 70 assembly constituencies. “We will involve 1.5 lakh people at the ground level. AAP volunteers from other states will be joining our Delhi team at the last stage,” Rai said. The party has also planned to appoint 5,300 sandesh vahaks to quell rumours and misinformation by opposition parties. By April 7, AAP will appoint 69,000 vijay pramukhs (volunteers at booth level) and their numbers will increase to 1.38 lakh by May 10.