On December 4, there will be elections for the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), and on December 7, the results will be announced. Three days after Gujarat’s first round of voting and one day before the state’s second and final round of voting, the Delhi elections take place. On December 8, the results of the MCD poll will be released one day before those for Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh. It is now a matter of juggling and wise resource use for the 10-year-old Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which is up against the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the opposition Congress and has stakes in both the Gujarat and MCD elections.
Following the party’s victory in Punjab, AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal increased the stakes for the party by visiting Gujarat frequently starting on April 4. Gujarat is the home state of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah. Kejriwal was accompanied by Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann as well. The two spoke at public events together before splitting up for road shows.
Kejriwal has mobilised the most resources possible for Gujarat, including labour. Sandeep Pathak, an AAP Rajya Sabha MP who is regarded as the party’s “organisation man” and was instrumental in the party’s victory in Punjab, Raghav Chadha, an AAP MP who the party believes appeals to young people and effectively communicates the party’s viewpoint, and Sanjay Singh, an AAP MP who is well-known for both his scathing political criticism and his ability to win over influential individuals, are all battling it out in Gujarat.
In addition to these, AAP Gujarat in-charge Gulab Singh Yadav has been in the state practically since the Delhi election results were announced in 2020. He is an AAP Delhi MLA. The BJP has also attempted to use the CBI’s raids and interrogations of Manish Sisodia, the deputy chief minister of Delhi, as a calling card in Gujarat. Aside from his travels with Kejriwal or the ones in which he attempted to “expose” the Gujarati educational system, Sisodia has actually been campaigning in the state for about a week.
On November 4, when the dates for the MCD elections were to be announced, Mann and Kejriwal held a joint news conference in the nation’s capital before departing for Ahmedabad to announce the party’s chief ministerial face for Gujarat and begin their three-day campaign there.
Gopal Rai, an AAP minister who serves as the party’s convener for Delhi, and Durgesh Pathak, an MLA who serves as co-in charge of Delhi, are concentrating on the MCD elections since the party needs to win there in order to advance both its regional and national goals.
Another core team has also been formed, and its members include MLAs Saurabh Bhardwaj, Atishi, and APMC Chairman Adil Ahmad Khan. They would be collaborating with Sisodia directly. The party has made quick progress since the chief minister’s return to Delhi on November 8.
On November 11, Kejriwal delivered the party’s platform in the AAP’s distinctive style of “10 Kejriwal Guarantees,” the PAC convened the following day, and the first list of 134 candidates was released that evening. On November 12, the second list—predicted to be the final one—was released. The AAP leader will once again travel to Gujarat to advance the party’s chances there, arriving back in Delhi only on the 15th.
Despite winning 67 of the 70 assembly seats in the Delhi Assembly in 2015, the party fell short in the MCD elections in 2017, allowing the BJP to complete a hat-trick. However, the party is highly sure that it would win the MCD elections in 2022, which may help to explain why Kejriwal is concentrating on Gujarat.
While praising the MCD election dates, party spokesperson and AAP MLA Saurabh Bhardwaj asserted that they were an obvious sign of the “BJP’s uneasiness.” He asserted that the party has been preparing for the MCD elections since April and that, in contrast to 2017, the party has a better record of accomplishments to highlight in the wake of the historic Constitutional Bench on the division of powers between the office of the Lieutenant Governor and that of the Chief Minister.
“The BJP has nothing to show off, while we have 62 MLAs and a track record of our efforts. In reality, our chief minister can concentrate on Gujarat, Bhardwaj asserted on the day the results were announced.
Subhash Arya, a seasoned BJP leader and a former mayor of South Delhi, had declared: “The decrease of wards from 272 to 250 can only benefit the BJP. Our party will take home 150 to 200 seats and easily win the popular vote.
Bhagwant Mann, Sanjay Singh, and Raghav Chadha, the AAP’s star campaigners who were solely focused on Gujarat, have now been brought in to campaign in Delhi as part of a strategy re-calibration.
In order to appeal to the sizable portion of Dalit voters, the party has also designated Rajendra Pal Gautam, who quit after attending a “diksha ceremony,” as a “star campaigner.” The simultaneous elections in Delhi and Gujarat will have the most impact on Kejriwal’s schedule because he was previously only campaigning in Gujarat and would now need to make time for Delhi as well.
To do Gujarat and Delhi justice, the AAP’s lean fighting force will need to split into two.
