Gopal Rai lays down marker for Gujarat AAP: organisational restructuring, winning Visavadar bypoll, top agenda

“The AAP in Gujarat has been working on its organisation for quite a long time. The AAP has broken the myth that no third party in Gujarat stands a chance. Seeing the work of AAP, the public gave us approximately 14 per cent of the vote and gave a message by sending five MLAs to the Assembly that Gujarat can have a strong third party. Despite mitigating circumstances, 41 lakh people pressed the ‘jhadu’ (broom) button and gave a message of new hope for the politics of the state,” Rai said, referring to the 2022 polls in which AAP won five seats in the 182-member Gujarat Assembly.

Durgesh Pathak and Gulab Singh Yadav have been appointed as Rai’s deputies for Gujarat in the rejig announced in March.

Speaking on the party’s reorganisation, Rai said, “The AAP is now starting its work for the next election. Recently, a political affairs committee meeting was held under the leadership of (national convener) Arvind Kejriwalji. A decision was made that whatever organisation deficiency had remained during the previous elections as a result of planning in Gujarat after the Punjab elections, those deficiencies will be rectified at the ground level.”

On his list of engagements in the state, Rai said, “We reached Gujarat yesterday and are starting the organisational restructuring. Today, we are having a meeting of the central zone party workers. On April 11, we will have a meeting in Rajkot of Saurashtra zone and one on April 12 in Junagadh. On April 13, we will hold a statewide meeting in Visavadar. Pramukh karyakartas in all 26 Lok Sabha seats and 182 Assembly seats will be present at the meeting.”

Regarding the Visavadar meeting, Rai said, “We have kept the state meeting in Visavadar because the farmers of Visavadar have never voted for the BJP. Of the seats that the BJP has never won, the first is Visavadar. Despite the BJP having a majority, the MLA of Visavadar was made to resign to make the people realise what happens when they don’t vote for them (the BJP). ‘And whoever you vote for, we will break them’ (was the BJP’s message), and thus the farmers were insulted. The people of Visavadar have remained without an MLA for the last one-and-half years as a bypoll was not held even after making the MLA resign.”

Rai said the AAP is going with two strategies in Gujarat. “One is that, across the 182 seats, we will reorganise our structure. Secondly, we aim to answer the insults directed at the farmers of Visavadar by the BJP,” said Rai.

Meanwhile, reiterating a previously made understanding with the Congress in Gujarat, AAP state chief Isudan Gadhvi said, “We had spoken with the Congress leaders in Gujarat and decided that we would not contest the Vav seat bypoll, and they would not contest on the Visavadar seat bypoll. We kept our word in Vav, and we are very sure that the Congress will do so here as well.” The BJP’s Swarupji Thakor defeated Gulabsinh Rajput of the Congress in the Vav Assembly bypoll last year.