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Gujarat polls: How AAP is emerging as the dark horse in BJP-Congress battle

AAP has named candidates for 10 seats even before poll dates are announced

Delhi Chief Minister and AAP Convener Arvind Kejriwal speaks during a meeting with traders and businessmen in Rajkot | PTI Delhi Chief Minister and AAP Convener Arvind Kejriwal | PTI

If you think that winning an election is a cakewalk for the ruling BJP in Gujarat as it is the home state of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, then you are mistaken.

Modi and Shah may well be frequenting Gujarat ahead of assembly elections later this year, but the Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party has beaten both the BJP and the opposition Congress in announcing the candidates for 10 assembly seats.

Any party announcing candidates even before the dates for the elections are announced is unprecedented in Gujarat where no third party has succeeded in an electoral battle. The third party or the third front have been the offshoots of either the Congress or the BJP in the state.

This time around, AAP is certainly a dark horse and if the party’s Gujarat unit president Gopal Italia is to be believed, then the AAP is all set to fight the elections and defeat the BJP. “Our party is a strong alternative,” he said.

The way Kejriwal has been coming to Gujarat at regular intervals and members of the AAP are reaching out to the masses, it was clear that the party means business and is not contesting elections in Gujarat just for the sake of it.

Kejriwal’s visits increased soon after the AAP won in Punjab and he has given guarantees of free 300 units of electricity for the people and jobs for the youth in Gujarat.

However, the party’s move of declaring names of the candidates for 10 seats has certainly come as a surprise in political circles.

The names were announced by Italia and Isudan Ghadvi, the party’s national joint general secretary.

The notable names in the list are Sagar Rabari, Vashram Sagathiya and Arjun Rathva. Rabari will contest from Bechraji, Sagathiya from Rajkot (Rural) and Rathva from Chhotaudepur.

A social activist, who has been working on farmers’ issues, Rabari is the vice-president of the party’s Gujarat unit. Sagathiya is a Congress turncoat and had contested the 2017 assembly election from Rajkot (Rural). He had lost by 2,179 votes.  Like Rabari, Rathva, too, is the party's state unit vice-president and has been working on tribal issues. He had unsuccessfully contested the 2017 assembly election on AAP ticket.

Ghadvi told THE WEEK that they are here to change politics. The party candidates will get time to reach out to the masses and convey to the people door to door the guarantees given by the party, he said.

He claimed that names of the candidates for all the 182 seats will be announced before the elections are announced. He said that the candidates have been selected after consulting the masses in the constituency.

Interestingly, despite searches by the ED on its leaders, the party has not lost its focus on Gujarat.

Their leaders have been saying that they are here in Gujarat to win elections and Kejriwal has time and again listed their achievements in Delhi and Punjab and has sought one chance from the public. “If we do not keep the promises then do not vote us to power next time”, he has been saying.

Political analyst Ghanshyam Shah said that Kejriwal has been aggressive when it comes to campaigning. He pointed out that the AAP has selected persons who have been doing work in the respective areas and those who have a clean image, which strikes a chord with the middle and lower middle class that has been suffering from price rise, and isn’t coming out as anti-BJP.

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