Kejriwal as its sole poll pitch, central theme, how AAP’s poll campaign has changed in 51 days

“Didn’t I tell you I’d be back soon? I am back,” Kejriwal announced from atop his SUV, addressing supporters outside Tihar jail on May 10. “I’m fighting against dictatorship with all I have, now 140 crore of us have to do that,” he added.

Back home, according to insiders, the CM had a “brainstorming session” with party leaders till late on Friday evening and discussed a strategy to utilise “every minute” of his 21-day interim bail period. In the days since, he has led seven roadshows for AAP as well as Congress candidates in all 7 seats.

An AAP insider said, “He has taken the responsibility for the entire AAP campaign in Delhi… Now, events have been designed specifically for him.” “Iss desh ko tanashahi se mukt karana hai (We have to rid the country of dictatorship),” an AAP leader said, “is what he wants to be the main political message now”. Besides, he said, the party will also emphasise his “10 guarantees”.

Direct attack on BJP

Kejriwal, according to insiders, has been busy ever since his release. “He knows he has a few weeks to make a difference in this election. He has met each of Delhi’s seven Lok Sabha candidates between Friday and Monday. He also led roadshows for Congress candidates on Wednesday,” said a leader.

Kejriwal also chaired several organisational meetings which were attended by AAP MLAs and councillors. “He told the elected representatives they needed to stick together and thwart any attempt by the BJP to break the AAP. He told them his own arrest was part of a plan to break AAP,” the leader said. On Saturday morning, his first press conference in two months, Kejriwal unleashed his most direct and aggressive attack on the BJP — taking on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, specifically his age, forcing the top BJP leadership to react to his statement. “He (Modi) is turning 75 next September. He is the one who made the rule that those who turn 75 had to retire. He has to retire next year. I ask BJP, who is your PM pick? Who will fulfill Modi’s guarantees? Will Amit Shah do it? When you go out to vote, remember, you are not voting for Shah, not for Modi,” he said.

The BJP responded immediately with Home Minister Shah assuring that Modi would complete his term again. Shah, instead, said if Kejriwal was under the impression that the Supreme Court’s interim bail order was a clean chit, his understanding of the law was “very poor”.

On Thursday, sitting alongside Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav — albeit two days after a similar INDIA bloc press conference where Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge was also supposed to be in attendance was given an inexplicable miss by the AAP which was initially supposed to be part of it — Kejriwal relaunched his national attack on the BJP. He reiterated that “Modiji is retiring next year” adding that the BJP’s seats were decreasing in “many states including UP, Bihar, Haryana, Delhi, Punjab, Maharashtra”. Yadav, meanwhile, declared that the BJP would face its “biggest defeat” these Lok Sabha elections even as he issued an appeal to voters to “fight to save Baba Saheb’s constitution”.

Congress keeps distance

Meanwhile, Kejriwal’s alliance partners in the INDIA bloc are rallying behind him, at least through statements. “I am very happy to see that Shri Arvind Kejriwal has got interim bail. It will be very helpful in the context of the current elections,” West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee wrote on X.

“Welcome the SC decision granting interim bail to Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal. This verdict has exposed the nefarious designs of the Enforcement Directorate and the Modi government” CPI(M) Secretary General Sitaram Yechury had said. There are, however, issues as far as the participation of the INDIA bloc’s largest partner, the Congress, are concerned. The seat-sharing arrangement between the AAP and Congress is in existence in Delhi, Gujarat, Haryana, Goa and Chandigarh but the parties are going it alone in Punjab where the AAP is in power at the Assembly.

While Congress candidates, and its local leadership, are seeking Kejriwal’s support to get AAP votes and vice versa — both parties share the same vote bank that resides across Delhi’s slums and unauthorised colonies — the Congress top brass has maintained a deliberate distance from him since his release.

No Congress leader was part of the crowd that welcomed him outside Tihar.

According to Congress sources, its former president Rahul Gandhi was likely to be the “sole focus” of a “large rally” in Northwest Delhi’s Ashok Vihar on Saturday.

“Our Delhi chief, Devender Yadav, has met him more than once and campaigned with him several times. What is the need for the national leadership to be part of any joint event when these are limited only to the city? On Saturday too, the spotlight will be solely on Rahuj ji,” a senior Delhi Congress leader said.

Despite the Congress’s reluctance to come too close, Kejriwal has emerged as an important leader of the INDIA bloc’s campaign against BJP. The AAP has deftly maneuvered the narrative around Kejriwal with the swiftly changing political landscape of the country leading him, more or less, to the centrestage of the electoral bulwark aimed at keeping the BJP from its third consecutive term at the Centre.

“Neither the AAP nor Arvind ji sees his role limited to Delhi. That was the case before his arrest and remains the same now. He would have been a part of campaigning for the INDIA bloc always but there is one significant difference now,” a senior AAP leader said. “His arrest became a rallying point against BJP across the country. Today, his arrest signifies the high-handedness of the Modi government which is going after tall political leaders,” the leader added.

Already having featured in roadshows across Delhi and states such as Haryana, since stepping out of prison, Kejriwal has more electoral activities — including townhall meetings and joint campaigning for INDIA candidates — scheduled across the country over the coming days. He is expected to participate in the Maha Vikas Aghadi rally in Mumbai on May 17.

Meanwhile, the BJP, which had so far restricted itself to communicating the benefits of the BJP-led Centre’s schemes to beneficiaries — especially in the city’s slums, JJ clusters and unauthorised colonies — and raising the issue of “corruption of the AAP government” and “Chief Minister Kejriwal”, has no alternative but to once again make it a ‘Modi vs Kejriwal’ poll battle.