With the municipal elections around the corner, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has started full-fledged campaign by launching "MCD Badlaav" campaign to connect the voters in each and every corner of the city and the ruling BJP is also focused its campaign in Delhi’s slums to retain its position by seeking support of Purvanchali voters. The Congress, however, seems to have lost the way as the party is still struggling with a leadership crisis.
All three political parties the ruling BJP, AAP and the Congress have launched their campaign to connect with voters with the AAP attacking the BJP over “corruption” in municipal corporations while the BJP is focusing on regaining trust of Purvanchali voters through "Jhuggi Samman Yatra" started from in the Jangpura assembly constituency. The BJP Delhi unit is also planning a similar campaign from mid-December in rural villages and unauthorised colonies which are considered the AAP strongholds.
Senior AAP leaders including Saurav Bhardwaj, Atishi, Raghav Chadha keep attacking the ruling BJP by ‘exposing’ scams and widespread ‘corruption’ in the municipal corporations.
The BJP leadership has adopted a protective approach to counter AAP’s allegations, fearing anti-incumbency factor and due to its ‘failure’ in addressing the civic issues including failure in containing vector borne diseases. The Congress seems to be in terminal decline as it is still struggling to deal with the internal dispute within the party.
A senior party leader who did not wish to be named, said that Delhi Congress president's failure to win the confidence of senior leaders resulted in scattered attempts to reach out to the residents of the city. “Party’s ‘Pol Khol Yatra’ failed to garner support of the public as the campaign was not supported and coordinated by leaders at district level.
The Congress is divided into a fraction and it will cost the party’s chances of winning seats in municipal elections,” he said.
The Congress leader further said that even one of the vice- presidents has written to the top leadership expressing displeasure over the functioning of the party in the leadership of party Delhi unit president Anil Kumar.
Further, several Congressmen who quit the party ahead of the MCD election, blaming the leadership for its inability to reach out to them, will also affect the party's performance. Recently, five-time municipal councillor and senior Congress leader Mukesh Goel joined the AAP along with about a dozen office-bearers of the Congress, including two-time former councillor Parma Bhai Solanki.
The BJP had emerged as the clear winner in the last Municipal Corporation elections winning 184 seats. The AAP came a distant second with just 46 seats in all the three Delhi municipal corporations, while the Congress could just manage to win 30 seats and others got 10 seats.