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Delhi Chief Minister and AAP's national convenor Arvind Kejriwal will be announcing his party's chief ministerial candidate for the Punjab Assembly polls today, January 18.
The party has received around 22 lakh responses under its campaign to elect its CM face for the Assembly polls. Last week, the Aam Aadmi Party had launched the survey under its ‘Janta Chunegi Apna CM' drive-through which Kejriwal had asked the people of Punjab to suggest names of their preferred chief ministerial candidates and launched a mobile number for the purpose. Kejriwal has stated that his own preference for the post is Bhagwant Mann.
In 24 hours, more than eight lakh people have responded to the phone number released by the AAP for choosing the party's chief ministerial face in Punjab, the party's senior leader Harpal Singh Cheema had said.
The AAP party had received more than three lakh WhatsApp messages, more than four lakh phone calls, over 50,000 text messages, and more than one lakh voice messages in a span of 24 hours after they announced the campaign.
A mobile number was launched by the party on which people could give their opinion till 5 pm on January 17 by recording their voice and sending text or WhatsApp messages as to who should be the party's chief ministerial candidate.
Voting for Punjab's 117 Assembly seats is scheduled for February 20 and the counting will take place on March 10.
Accepting the demand of political parties, the Election Commission on Monday decided to hold the single-phase Assembly polls in Punjab on February 20 instead of February 14 in view of Guru Ravidas Jayanti.
Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi and political parties in the state had urged the poll panel to postpone the date of voting as lakhs of followers of Guru Ravidas travel to Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh to celebrate his birth anniversary on February 16.
Channi had said as members of the Scheduled Castes community are likely to visit Varanasi from February 10 to 16, they won’t be able to vote in the elections.
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