The wait for the Aam Aadmi Party’s chief ministerial face for the ensuing Punjab assembly polls will finally end on Tuesday with the Delhi Chief Minister and party’s national convener Arvind Kejriwal set to make the announcement at 12 noon in Mohali.
AAP, as of now, is running “Janta Chunegi Apna CM '' drive, launched on January 13, as a part of which it claimed to have received more than 15 lakh responses from the people of the State to suggest names of their preferred chief ministerial candidates.
Under the drive, Kejriwal had last week released a phone number and asked the people of Punjab to respond to tell them who they want to see as AAP’s chief ministerial face. The responses were accepted till 5 pm on Monday.
Kejriwal had then said that though he had wanted party MP and state unit president Bhagwant Mann’s name to be declared as the chief ministerial candidate, the latter insisted that the people of Punjab should make this decision.
“The name of the party's chief ministerial candidate for Punjab assembly elections will be announced tomorrow at 12 noon,” said Kejriwal while talking with the reporters on the sidelines of an event in New Delhi.
“Tomorrow, all doubts and uncertainties regarding AAP’s CM face will be cleared. On Tuesday, Arvind Kejriwal ji is coming to Punjab and according to the opinion received from the people, he will officially announce the name of the Chief Minister,” said AAP’s Punjab affairs co-in-charge Raghav Chadha.
Chadha claimed that the overwhelming response was received from the people on the numbers released by the party for choosing the chief ministerial face, “and this has proved that AAP’s declared chief ministerial face will be the next chief minister of Punjab”.
“The people of Punjab now want change and people are fully determined to give a chance to the Aam Aadmi Party to bring about change,” he added.
AAP’s national convenor in June 2021 had stated that the party's chief ministerial face for the 2022 Punjab assembly polls would be from the Sikh community and that the entire Punjab would be proud of its choice.
Voting for Punjab's 117 assembly seats is scheduled for February 14 and the counting of votes will take place on March 10.