Respond to Arvind Kejriwal’s arrest with your vote, AAP tells Delhi in new pitch

The ‘Jail Ka Jawab Vote Se’ campaign comes a month after Arvind Kejriwal and Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann launched AAP’s campaign on March 8

NEW DELHI: The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Monday launched a fresh campaign for the Lok Sabha polls in Delhi that asks people to respond to chief minister Arvind Kejriwal’s arrest three weeks ago by voting in support of the party.

AAP leaders Sanjay Singh, Gopal Rai, Sandeep Pathak and Pankaj Gupta during a Press conference in New Delhi on Monday (PTI)

“It is the first time that a sitting chief minister has been arrested during the Lok Sabha polls. We are launching the campaign ‘Jail Ka Jawab Vote Se’ (Respond to the jail with your vote) and we want you to empower Kejriwal,” announced AAP leader Sandeep Pathak, who along with party senior leader Sanjay Singh, Gopal Rai and Pankaj Gupta, launched the party’s campaign.

“It is the key slogan of the party and the entire campaign will revolve around this campaign slogan,” Pathak said at the Press conference in Delhi on Monday. He clarified that this slogan will also be used outside Delhi in addition to other slogans.

The new campaign comes a month after Arvind Kejriwal and Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann on March 8 launched the party’s Lok Sabha national campaign, ‘Sansad Me Bhi Kejriwal, Toh Delhi Hogi Aur Khushhal’ (If Kejriwal is in Parliament too, the city will be more fulfilled).

Kejriwal’s arrest by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on March 21 in connection with alleged irregularities in the 2021-22 Delhi excise policy, however, led to the party recalibrating its campaign. Kejriwal is in Tihar jail in judicial custody till April 15 when he will be produced before a Delhi court.

“PM Narendra Modi conspired to put Arvind Kejriwal in jail to keep him away from election. It has happened for the first time that the sitting chief minister of a key opposition party has been put in jail to keep him away from elections. Arvind Kejriwal considered every family in Delhi his own family, he provided good education to children, free electricity and water, provided free bus rides for women, and recently announced ₹1,000 financial assistance per month to every woman. It has resulted in savings for every family. Delhi gave birth to honest politics, but a conspiracy has been hatched to crush honest politics. Now it is the responsibility of Delhi to protect it,” said Pathak.

AAP leader Gopal Rai said it was time for the people to work for Kejriwal, who had worked for them all these years. “We will connect with every resident of Delhi and on May 25 we will ensure that BJP loses on all seven seats. The BJP is threatening that if Arvind Kejriwal does not resign, the President’s Rule will be imposed in Delhi. The way we dislodged BJP from Delhi assembly and MCD, we will defeat BJP on all seven seats of Delhi,” said Gopal Rai.

AAP leader Sanjay Singh, who was arrested in the excise policy case in October last year and released on bail on April 3, asked people to vote out the BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

“I will request people to remember the face of Arvind Kejriwal when they go to vote in the Lok Sabha polls, remember the face of their children who are studying in good schools, remember the zero electricity bill, remember the face of women taking free bus rides, senior citizens who have availed free pilgrimage. It was all done by Arvind Kejriwal. A dictator has put him (Kejriwal) in jail. You have to respond to it through your votes,” the AAP MP said.

Sanjay Singh asked how free water, electricity, free bus rides, free pilgrimage, and other schemes would continue without Arvind Kejriwal.

AAP is contesting four of the seven seats in Delhi in alliance with Congress which is contesting three seats. The AAP and Congress, two key constituents of the INDIA opposition bloc, have agreed to contest the national elections together in Delhi, Gujarat, Haryana, Chandigarh, and Goa. They will contest the polls separately in AAP-ruled Punjab.

Delhi is scheduled to vote on May 25.

The AAP and Congress, key constituents of the INDIA bloc, have agreed to contest the national elections together in Delhi, Gujarat, Haryana, Chandigarh, and Goa. They will contest the polls separately in AAP-ruled Punjab.

AAP has 62 lawmakers in the 70-member Delhi assembly and the BJP eight. The BJP swept the last Lok Sabha polls in the Capital winning all seven Lok Sabha seats.

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