Virendra Pandit
Ahmedabad: A day after his fledgling outfit Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) lost its only alliance partner in Gujarat, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Tuesday claimed the Indian National Congress (INC) is “finished” in the poll-bound state.
Kejriwal, who has been frequently campaigning in Gujarat ahead of the Assembly elections due by the end of this year, claimed the Congress is a spent force in the state.
After a town hall meeting with sanitation workers here, he told the media that the “Congress is finished” in Gujarat.
He made this claim when a reporter asked him about the Congress’s allegation that the AAP government of Punjab is spending crores on advertisements for the Gujarat polls, although it is on the brink of bankruptcy and had no money even for paying salaries to its employees.
A visibly irritated Kejriwal shot back: “The Congress is finished. Stop taking their questions. People are clear about this. Nobody cares about their questions.”
Interestingly, his claim came a day after his alliance partner Bharatiya Tribal Party (BTP) severed ties with the AAP. In May 2022, the AAP declared its alliance with the BTP for the ensuing Assembly elections.
However, the BTP called it off on Monday when its President Chhotubhai Vasava ended the four-months-old alliance with AAP, calling the Kejriwal-led party a B-Team of the BJP trying to bring back the latter to power in Gujarat.
Vasava also clubbed the AAP leader with Topiwallas, of the saffron and green varieties.
After its huge victory in Punjab earlier this year and troubled by recent allegations of corruption against Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia and other AAP leaders, the party has set its sights on the Gujarat election with Kejriwal making multiple trips to the state.
He is pitching AAP as the BJP’s main rival and urged voters not to waste their votes on the Congress, insisting that the principal Opposition party is nowhere. He is also trying to woo different sections of voters, ranging from businesspersons, and social and political activists, to sanitation workers and auto-rickshaw drivers.
“There are people who don’t want BJP rule in the state and they also don’t like voting for the Congress. We have to get their votes as we are the only alternative to BJP in the State,” they quoted him as telling his party.
AAP debuted in Gujarat in the 2017 state election, in which it could not win a single seat. The Congress put up a strong challenge to the BJP, winning 77 seats and restricting the ruling party to 99 of Gujarat’s 182 seats.