Propping up its saggy image due to corruption charges, AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal on Friday launched a fortnight long election campaign titled ‘Revdi Pe Charcha’ beginning November 25 ahead of the Delhi assembly election next year, even as the party faces internal turmoil.
Slamming Prime Minister Narendra Modi's repeated criticism of free services, Kejriwal said, "Yes, we are proudly offering these six 'revdis' to the Delhiites. He also challenged to implement a free power scheme in the states ruled by the BJP-led NDA. Kejriwal’s campaign name played on the BJP jibe on the party's freebies or "revdis" given to the people.
Launching the campaign, Kejriwal said the party's district and booth-level office bearers will reach out to voters, distributing pamphlets about the free facilities ('revdis') provided by the AAP government. During the campaign, AAP leaders and workers have planned to hold 65,000 small public meetings across the national Capital’s 70 assembly constituencies apprising the public of their free services. Pamphlets detailing these benefits, referred to as 'revdis,' will also be distributed.
The initiative is designed to bring AAP's achievements directly to the people, especially its popular ‘freebies’ or 'revdis', which have been a cornerstone of the party’s governance. Free power till first 200 units, 20,000 litre free water, free education, mohalla clinics, free bus ride for women and the free pilgrimage scheme for elderly will be highlighted by the AAP teams visiting households during the campaign. The emphasis of the campaign would be that the BJP would throw these “facilities” in the bin if people vote for them.
“Delhi’s governance is split: half under us, half under BJP and over past decade, we’ve delivered electricity, water, schools, hospitals, roads, CCTV cameras, streetlights, and sewage systems, while BJP has only stalled progress,” he said
He alleged that the BJP wants to stop all the free facilities in the national capital. "The BJP is in power in 20 states and not even in a single state do they provide any of these free 'revdis'. This is because they don't have the intention; only AAP knows how to provide these facilities," Kejriwal said.
He further said that AAP workers will ask the voters what the BJP has done for Delhi in the last 10 years since "the national capital is a half-state and the central government has as many powers as we do". All the BJP has done in the past decade is to halt the AAP government's developmental works, Kejriwal added.
Backing Kejriwal's announcements, Delhi Chief Minister Atishi said in a post in Hindi on X, "Arvind Kejriwal has spent people's tax money on public instead of keeping it in his pocket. But all this will stop if the BJP comes to power (in Delhi)."
"The people of Delhi will have to make Arvind Kejriwal their chief minister once again to save the free facilities," she added.
AAP has been in campaign mode after the Lok Sabha elections with senior leaders, including Kejriwal, holding a series of ‘padayatra’ and MLAs reaching out to households through ‘Your MLA at Your Doorsteps’ among others.
AAP has 59 seats in Delhi assembly while BJP has seven seats.AAP got 62 seats in 2020 assembly election and the BJP got 8, but two AAP MLAs including Chhatarpur MLA Kartar Singh Tanwar and Rajendra Pal Gautam resigned from the assembly citing differences with the party