The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has finally established a coordination committee in the Capital to collaborate with the Congress locally, little over three weeks before Delhi elections.
The move is noteworthy because the AAP had announced its “Jail ka Jawab Vote Se” campaign in mid-April, focusing only on the four seats it is contesting: East, West, South, and New Delhi. The Congress had fielded candidates for the remaining three seats, North East, North West, and Chandini Chowk. AAP leader Gopal Rai had said that the party will take a decision if the Congress made a request when questioned about the selective campaign. But on May 3, Rai was there when Udit Raj, the Congress candidate, announced his candidacy for the North West seat, marking a significant change.
A committee led by AAP MP and General Secretary (organization) Sandeep Pathak has been established to organize the forthcoming Delhi elections within the INDIA bloc, mostly with the Congress. AAP and Congress are running together in elections for the first time.
Durgesh Pathak, the MLA for Rajinder Nagar in the AAP and a member of the Political Affairs Committee, the party’s top decision-making body, will serve as the coordinator of the new committee, which would consist of seven more members. The candidates in question are Rajesh Gupta from New Delhi, Dinesh Mohaniya from South Delhi, Pawan Sharma from Chandini Chowk, Mukesh Alwahat from North West, Sanjeev Jha from North East, and Dilip Pandey from East Delhi.
“My primary responsibility is to ensure that there are no hurdles in the campaign in all seven constituencies,” Pathak said in an interview with News18. It is to ensure that Congress and the AAP fight together as a single entity rather than as a divided house.
Pathak will arrange for AAP and Congress leaders to be available for each other’s campaigns, plan combined padayatras as needed, and use door-to-door campaigns to cover as much area as possible. Additionally, he will provide the Congress with the party’s ground intelligence, problems, and media strategy.
When asked whether leading AAP figures will be ready to campaign in the three Lok Sabha seats from where the Congress is running, Pathak said that they would.
In a same vein, Pathak would be accountable for guaranteeing Congress leaders’ involvement in the seats where AAP is running, should the candidates so request. Regarding whether or not Sunita, the wife of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, would do road shows in these three seats, Pathak said that “nothing is final yet.” Right now, our job is only getting started.
Two roadshows in favor of AAP candidates Kuldeep Kumar for East Delhi and Mahabal Mishra for West Delhi were conducted by Sunita Kejriwal. First, in each of the seven seats, candidates from each party are being introduced to members of the other’s cadre, MLAs, former MLAs, and council members.
While Sandeep Pathak had been discussing the necessity of a coordination committee since the alliance was finalized and was working on it behind the scenes, the announcement was made following meetings with Sunita Kejriwal by Congress candidates Kanhaiya Kumar and Udit Raj. They expressed their support for the chief minister of Delhi, who was arrested on March 21 on suspicion of money laundering related to the Delhi Excise policy case and is currently in judicial custody.
With the Vidhan Sabha elections coming up next year and talk of running in an alliance already, the AAP’s fresh effort on the coordination committee is significant.
The action is significant because it follows the turmoil that the Delhi Congress party experienced when two former MLAs, former minister Raj Kumar Chauhan, and leader Arvinder Singh Lovely resigned. Despite Lovely’s departure and the Grand Old Party’s swift appointment of Devender Yadav as temporary leader, there has been a noticeable loss of support at the grassroots level, which is concerning for the alliance. Recall that Lovely had resigned, citing among other things, his affiliation with the AAP and tickets allocated to Udit Raj and Kanhaiya Kumar.