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Delhi Assembly Elections 2020: Door-to-door campaign, roadshows and meetings; parties prepare for polls
Delhi Assembly Elections 2020 : On January 10, the city’s ruling AAP finished its latest phase of poll campaign which comprised of 700 mohalla sabhas and seven town halls by chief minister Arvind Kejriwal.
With the assembly polls to be on held on February 8, top leaders of all three major political parties in Delhi - the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress - are busy preparing their list of candidates for the 70 seats in Delhi. Senior leaders in all three parties have said that they would announce their first list of candidates this week.
On January 10, the city’s ruling AAP finished its latest phase of poll campaign which comprised of 700 mohalla sabhas and seven town halls by chief minister Arvind Kejriwal. The top leaders in the party are now focussing on the candidate list and manifesto, and they are likely to launch the next phase of the poll campaign this week “after the candidate list is out and manifesto is launched”, senior AAP leader Sanjay Singh said.
The next phase would comprise of jan sabhas (public meetings) by top leaders, roadshows by Kejriwal and a door-to-door campaign in which party volunteers aim to visit around 3.5 million households with its new manifesto. In all phases of its campaign, the party has depended largely on volunteers and that shall continue. As many as 1,50,000 of them are presently part of its poll campaign, the AAP’s Delhi convener Gopal Rai said.
The BJP does not have any mega rally or roadshow planned at least for the next three days, but all seven of its MPs in Delhi have been roped in for a series of public gatherings in their respective Lok Sabha constituencies, which kickstarts today, a senior BJP leader said.
In its poll campaign, the BJP is focussing on the Citizenship (Amendment) Act - accusing the AAP and the Congress of spreading information. The amended law led to widespread protests in the city that started soon after it was cleared by both Houses of Parliament last month. Senior leaders of the AAP and the Congress, however, maintain that they will keep their poll campaign focus on development issues that are specific to Delhi.
Delhi Congress chief Subhash Chopra said he has not kept any outside engagements today, as he has a series of meetings planned with other party leaders for finalisation of candidates for the polls. “I have a screening committee meeting scheduled for selection of candidates. Before this I have a series of internal meetings with party workers and other leaders. My whole days is packed with meetings, as there is little time left for the polls,” said Chopra.
He further said, the party has got more than 800 applications for candidature. “It will take time to screen all the applications including a large number from youth wing leaders. My focus will remain on youth and women, as the party needs fresh faces. The list will be out this week.”
