Bhopal, (Samajweekly) In an attempt to create a place for the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in poll-bound Madhya Pradesh, its national convenor and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Monday announced 10 poll guarantees for the people of the state on the lines of Delhi and Punjab.
Addressing an election rally in Rewa, Kejriwal promised free education in government schools, making them better than private schools, controlling the fees structure in private schools, and free treatment at government hospitals and Mohalla Clinics across the state.
The list of promises included uprooting corruption, government jobs for all (turning ad hoc employees/teachers into permanent employees) and Rs 3,000 monthly unemployment allowance to the jobless youth till they get jobs, among others.
Notably, it was Kejriwal’s second public rally in the Vindhya region, where the BJP had won 24 out of the 30 Assembly seats in the 2018 elections.
The second rally came nearly a month after Kejriwal addressed a similar rally in the adjoining Satna district bordering Uttar Pradesh.
During his speech, Kejriwal took a dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘One Nation One Election’ idea, saying “there should be elections every month to keep the politicians under people’s control”.
Meanwhile, taking a leaf out of Shah Rukh Khan’s dialogue from the recent-released Bollywood flick ‘Jawan’, Kejriwal asked the people “not to vote for parties which seek votes in name of caste and religion, but to uproot the BJP and the Congress from MP by voting for AAP’s honest politics, just like in Delhi and Punjab”.
“Don’t fall in the trap of any other political party’s guarantees, they are all fake. The only true guarantees come from us, which has been proved in Delhi and Punjab,” Kejriwal said.
AAP is zeroing upon the Gwalior-Chambal, Bundelkhand and Vindhya regions (all bordering UP) in its efforts to make an entry into the MP Vidhan Sabha.
Six of the 10 candidates named in AAP’s first list for the polls are for the three regions bordering UP and Rajasthan.
Notably, AAP had contested 208 out of the 230 seats in MP in the 2018 polls, but could manage just around 1 per cent votes.
In the 2022 local body polls in MP, the AAP polled 6.3 per cent votes, winning the Mayor’s post in Singrauli in Vindhya region.
Fifty-two of its candidates were elected as municipal councillors, 10 as district panchayat members and 47 as village sarpanchs across the state.
