The campaigning style of the common man’s party is everything but commonplace. Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) takes pride in being “aam”, but its “fundas” for wooing the voters are certainly out of the ordinary.
From toll plazas to traffic lights, from NRIs’ ‘Chalo Punjab’ campaign to forming ‘human chain’ down-under, from taking out ‘Jago’ in villages to storming the social media and coining catchy slogans, AAP is adopting unique ways to woo Punjab voters.
The party had made a mark in 2014 lok Sabha polls by seizing four out of 13 lok Sabha seats in Punjab. At that time, AAP largely depended upon door-to-door campaigning, that worked wonders for it in Delhi too.
Besides, the mass support by the Punjabi NRI brethren too favoured AAP in 2014 stunning the state’s traditional political parties — the Congress and the SAD-BJP combine — by securing 24.5 per cent votes.
AAP’s emergence has not only changed the political equations in the state by making the contest a triangular, but has also transformed the way political parties are campaigning during ongoing election.
Seeing NRIs supporting AAP en masse, all parties made attempts to woo them. Parties even adopted AAP’s door-to-door and personal contact strategy. The parties limited the number of mega rallies, and instead concentrate upon making personal touch with the electors.
The party then stormed virtual world by logging on to the social media, followed by others. After thousands of NRI supporters landed in Punjab from across the seas, other parties too gathered the support from Punjabi diaspora.
And when all others were following AAP’s footsteps, it came out with unique ways to garner votes.
“When everyone is doing the same thing to woo voters, we wanted to do it in a different way, like carrying out jaago in villages which is purely a Punjabi tradition. It received wonderful reactions,” AAP’s Manjit Singh told The Pioneer.
AAP’s women volunteers had conducted jaago — a part of Punjabi weddings wherein family members wake up their neighbours at night before wedding while dancing and singing with ladies carrying decorated copper or brass vessel on their head — at more than 150 places including key constituencies — Patiala, Amritsar (East), Qadian, Gurdaspur, Bathinda and Jalandhar.
“Jaago as the word suggest means wake up…so it is symbolic like we want people to wake up and vote for change. Through this, we tell the people about our policies or programmes and what the party intends to do after forming the government,” said Manjit.
Further, he shared that toll plazas and traffic lights is such a vast platform where you can target such a huge audience. “Our campaign on traffic lights and toll plazas got a huge response. We covered about 36 toll plazas in the state,” he added.
Under AAP’s campaign on traffic lights, held at Amritsar, Pathankot, Jalandhar, Bathinda and Patiala towns, volunteers wearing Arvind Kejriwal’s mask holding jhaaru (broom) were seen campaigning at key locations.
If that is not enough, AAP’s Australia-based supporters had also made a human chain and raised funds to show their support to the party ahead of Assembly elections in Punjab and also Goa.
To support AAP in Punjab, about 35,000 NRIs participated in ‘Umeed Di Goonj’ — a cultural programme — at 7000 locations covering 85 assembly segments across Punjab. Under the programme, the NRIs distributed pamphlets, giving AAP’s viewpoint, amidst dhol beats.
With Punjab’s top comedians like Bhagwant Mann heading the party’s campaign committee and Gurpreet Singh Ghuggi heading the state unit, its electioneering is sure to be distinctive, and with a satirical touch.
AAP volunteers were seen campaigning on tractors, riding their motorcycles into village interiors and knocking on doors, speaking to marginalized, and shouting slogans targeting Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Badal and his brother-in-law Bikram Majithia, besides Sukhbir’s father, Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal.
“Jeeje di na saale di, sarkar banegi jhaaru wale di!”, “Bete di naa Baap di, sarkar banegi AAP di!” are to sample a few. And not to forget the drug issue. “Chitte te na daaru te, mohar lagegi Jhaaru te!”