Arvind Kejriwal seeks poll pivot in rebel avatar
Image credit X @AAPDelhi
Arvind Kejriwal to hold strategy meeting of AAP
By Manish Anand
New Delhi, May 12: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has come out all guns blazing after his 50-day incarceration in the Tihar Jail. He sent the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) under cover by his claim that vote for the saffron outfit will actually be a vote for Union Minister for Home Affairs Amit Shah.
Kejriwal is attacking the BJP with precision. His singling out of attack on “dictatorship” is the Opposition poll pivot in the Lok Sabha elections.
Kejriwal has entered the ongoing Lok Sabha elections as the 12th man of the Opposition team. The Supreme Court green-flagged his entry into the poll arena, leaving the incumbent BJP red-faced.
In the first three phases, voting has taken place for a total of 285 Lok Sabha seats. The polling for the fourth phase will take place on Monday, May 12. Kejriwal missed out the Gujarat poll turf as the Supreme Court granted him an interim bail. Polling for all the parliamentary constituencies in Gujarat had taken place in the third phase.
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Kejriwal will hold a key strategy meeting of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Sunday. Thereafter, he will hold another presser to grab the national headlines.
In the first two days of his release from the Tihar Jail, Delhi Chief Minister appears to have pushed out Prime Minister Narendra Modi from the perception centre stage. This is despite the fact that the prime minister is carpet-bombing with his interviews to the regional and the national media outlets.
Kejriwal’s two-barrel engine attack on the BJP with the “dictatorship” and the “vote for Amit Shah” ammunitions has sharpened the Opposition poll narrative in the Lok Sabha elections.
The Opposition seeks to put Modi on the mat with “dictatorship” knock-out punch. Kejriwal wants to make the “dictatorship” poll plank further shine with claims that vote for the BJP would in fact be a “vote for Amit Shah”.
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Political observers invariably comment that Union Minister for Home Affairs, incidentally, built an image of a ruthless and authoritarian leader after he had taken charge of the BJP president. Kejriwal touched the raw nerve of the raging debate among observers and also within the BJP on the issue of “who after Modi”.
The maverick chief minister of Delhi also appears fuelling “fear” within the ranks of the BJP by stoking air on Shah taking over the seat of power at the Centre. The BJP had replaced known faces of the party who were chief ministers for several years such as Vijay Rupani (Gujarat), Shivraj Singh Chauhan (Madhya Pradesh), Manohar Lal Khattar (Haryana), BS Yediyurappa (Karnataka). Replacements had been lightweights with questionable popularity matrix.
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The BJP leaders led by Shah have dismissed the claims of Kejriwal, saying that Modi will be the prime minister for the full term and thereafter also. The BJP had conveniently floated the idea of the retirement age of 75 years from electoral politics ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
Kejriwal’s home turf accounts just for 21 Lok Sabha seats. The AAP hopes to sweep Punjab where the party is eying all the 14 Lok Sabah seats. The BJP had won all the seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi in 2019.
But the Delhi chief minister is now seeking the role of the force-multiplier of the Opposition by laying claims on strongest critic of Modi and the BJP.
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