Lok Sabha elections 2019: AAP plans 4-tier poll campaign strategy

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has planned a four-tier campaign strategy for the May 12 Lok Sabha elections in Delhi, the party’s Delhi unit convener Gopal Rai said on Saturday.

At the core of AAP’s campaign will be 65,000 volunteers tasked to hold a one-to-one dialogue in every household.

“The aim is to introduce closed dialogues with as many families as possible and change the mind of the voter. The volunteers have been asked to focus more on the BJP voters who, after five years of its rule at the Centre, are confused whether its tenure was beneficial for them or not,” Rai said.

The issues will be full statehood to Delhi and the impact of demonetisation and communalism.

Rai said AAP will launch its formal campaign after Holi. While the party has put five volunteers at each of the 13,000 polling booths, the second tier of the campaign will be led by AAP MLAs, who will run extensive constituency-wise campaigns. “Third will be our star campaigners and fourth will be rallies of AAP convener and chief minister Arvind Kejriwal,” said Rai, who is also Delhi’s labour minister.

Asked about the star campaigners, Rai said, “There will be political stalwarts from opposition parties. Leaders, though not all, who attended our February 13 mahagathbandhan rally at Jantar Mantar, will be our star campaigners. We are still making the list based on their availability.”

Chief ministers Mamata Banerjee (West Bengal) and N Chandrababu Naidu (Andhra Pradesh), BJP leader Shatrughan Sinha and former finance minister Yashwant Sinha are among those AAP will invite for campaigning.

Apart from Delhi, Kejriwal, who is not contesting the elections, will campaign in Punjab and Haryana.

In the 2014 general elections, the Aam Aadmi Party had fielded over 400 candidates across the country but won just four seats in Punjab.

First Published: Mar 17, 2019 00:45 IST