Lok Sabha elections 2019: AAP sets up war room to micromanage campaign, 20-member team to work 24/7

Getting into the full election mode, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Friday set up a “war room” at its headquarters to micro-manage the party’s campaign for the Lok Sabha polls.

AAP’s Delhi unit convener Gopal Rai said the wait for the party’s election manifesto would be longer as it would release the poll document only by the end of next month.

While Delhi votes on May 12 to elect its seven MPs, AAP has made full statehood its key poll plank amid speculation of an alliance with the Congress. Through the central war room opened on Friday, the party plans to coordinate with its leaders and volunteers about their campaigning activities in every parliamentary constituency.

“This war room is connected to smaller war rooms, which we have built in each Lok Sabha constituency. One of the foremost tasks of the team at the central office is to seek daily progress reports from all constituencies,” Rai said.

The senior AAP leader said the party’s campaign works would be monitored round-the-clock by a 20-member core team, which will keep an eye on the volunteers. “They have been given functional responsibilities and will operate in shifts. The core team includes members from different units, who have to provide daily feedback from their respective units and collate reports on its performances. The overall in-charge of the central control room is senior party volunteer Suresh Kathait, who handles internal party coordination and communication,” Rai said.

The units created by AAP include media, social media, technical support and frontal organisations. “They have to report about public meetings of AAP’s star campaigners, relevant election commission permissions, manifesto preparation, daily research issues, daily reports from observers in all 70 constituencies, nukkad sabhas and exposing the lies of opponents,” the party said in an official statement.

All these units submit their daily reports to the party leadership by 10 pm. For seamless coordination, the party has appointed coordinators from the central war room for each Lok Sabha constituency and these seven coordinators communicate with 10 observers each. In the next phase, the party is in the process of taking the coordination to all 70 assembly constituencies and eventually to all wards of Delhi.

On the party’s manifesto, Rai said the focus will be on issues related to women safety, health and education.

“It will largely be about how Delhi will benefit from full statehood,” he said.