Congress in Gujarat only exists on paper, says Kejriwal

Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) convenor Arvind Kejriwal on Sunday alleged that the Congress in Gujarat largely existed only on paper and asked party workers to ensure no votes are cast in favour of the party in the assembly elections due later this year.

Kejriwal, who is on a two-day visit to Gujarat beginning July 3, was speaking at an event in Nikol area of Ahmedabad where almost 7,000 office-bearers appointed recently for the elections participated in an oath taking ceremony to officially join the party.

“The massive crowd that you see here is of the new office-bearers of Gujarat. Today, 6,958 office bearers are joining AAP in Gujarat. This is in addition to the thousands of party workers who have joined us and thousands and lakhs of people who have blessed us. This only goes on to show the huge support that AAP is garnering in Gujarat at a rapid pace,” Kejriwal, who is the chief minister of Delhi, said.

On June 8, AAP had dissolved its Gujarat unit — retaining only Gopal Italia’s post of state chief — declaring that the move was part of its new strategy ahead of the polls. After releasing two lists, the party then declared 6,098 candidates for the state unit on June 30.

The party is looking to emerge as a third front in the state elections that have largely been a bipolar contest for a long time now between the Congress and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). However, this is not the party’s first attempt to contest elections in the state. The party had made efforts to contest the 2017 elections but backed out later saying the timing was not right.

Speaking at the Nikol event, Kejriwal said AAP in Gujarat has emerged as a bigger organisation than the Gujarat Congress and added that it would soon surpass the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s state unit as well.

“As an organisation, we have become bigger than Congress in Gujarat. The Congress exists largely on paper here. We will have our booth level organisation in place next month. By then, we will have built an organisation bigger than the BJP in Gujarat,” he said.

“We have to reach households in Gujarat and tell them about our work in Delhi and Punjab; how we have provided electricity at lower rates and provided free education. We also have to tell people that it’s no use voting for Congress. Last time, they put their faith in Congress and you can see today how many MLAs have left them. The office-bearers of AAP have to ensure that not a single vote is cast for the Congress in the assembly elections,” he added.

He said that there are many people who are unhappy with the BJP and want a change but they end up voting for the saffron party as they have no alternative aside from the Congress.

“If we can get votes of people who are unhappy with the BJP and don’t want to vote for the Congress either, if we can do this, we even form the next government,” said Kejriwal.

“Recently a large delegation of BJP leaders from Gujarat visited Delhi to find loopholes in the development work done by us. They went from colony to colony, school to school, hospital to hospital for forty-eight hours and they could not find a single fault with our work,” he added.

A BJP spokesperson when contacted declined to comment.

The Gujarat Congress dismissed Kejriwal’s remarks saying they were the only alternative for a ‘BJP-mukt Bharat’. “Congress has been working in Gujarat with the people and for the people, rather than engaging in only event management activities like the AAP. There is a trend seen in many instances including the Gandhinagar civic body elections last year, where AAP is indirectly supporting the BJP. Where are they getting all their funding from? As far as Congress’ outreach is concerned, take any village in Gujarat or for that matter the entire country and you will come across people who believe in Congress’ ideology. Also, those who have been talking about Congress Mukt Bharat have to ultimately rely on Congress leaders to keep themselves afloat,” said Nishit Vyas, general secretary for Gujarat Congress.

On Monday, Kejriwal is scheduled to attend a townhall event in Ahmedabad where he will discuss the issue of electricity rates, said a functionary familiar with the matter.