Journalism of Courage
Close on the heels of the Gujarat Assembly election results, which saw the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) winning 5 of the state’s total 182 seats after having run a high-voltage campaign amid much fanfare, the party seems to have got down to work out its future roadmap in the state.
The AAP leadership’s bid to keep its focus on Gujarat has come against the backdrop of speculation that the newly-elected party MLAs might join the BJP, which retained power by sweeping the polls and bagging 156 seats in a record landslide.
This Wednesday, AAP supremo and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal met these five party MLAs in the national capital, ostensibly to discuss the expected organisational changes and their roles as first-time legislators. Kejriwal’s meeting them may have put to rest for now the strong buzz about their crossing over to the BJP as they prepare for their first Assembly session that will begin on December 19.
The AAP leadership’s move to swing into action days after the poll results signalled its intention to contain a possible damage to the party’s electoral breakthrough as well as image in Gujarat besides setting out the organisation’s action plan in the state for the coming months.
The Gujarat AAP’s social media accounts have begun to showcase the party’s work in Surat, where it had won a sizeable number of seats in the 2021 Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC) polls to become the principal opposition there. On December 13, when the speculation over its MLAs’ possible defection to the BJP grew, the state AAP held a meeting in Ahmedabad, where its president Gopal Italia, national joint general secretary Isudan Gadhvi and other leaders addressed the party workers, motivating them by highlighting how the party, a new entrant, “busted the myth about Gujarat being a bipolar state”.
The Gujarat AAP’s general secretary Manoj Sorathiya said, “It was a coordination meeting, held for the first time after the elections. All the candidates fielded in the Gujarat Assembly elections along with Gujarat unit leaders were present to discuss the next course of action and roadmap of the party. The mistakes (that we made) in the elections were discussed, and so was the blueprint to approach the upcoming polls. Each candidate was asked to analyse and report on the issues or drawbacks in their constituencies, and the probable solutions.”
Italia and Gadhvi also attended the meeting that Kejriwal took with five MLAs in Delhi. “The meeting was to decide the roadmap of the party’s functioning in Gujarat for the next five years, leading up to the 2027 Assembly elections. The party will fight all the elections in these five years that will happen in Gujarat, and of course the Lok Sabha elections in 2024. A report card on our performance was made and discussed based on the meeting that was held in Ahmedabad on December 13. One of the major drawbacks of the party, we realised, was that it is not strong at the grassroots level as the BJP. We will focus on strengthening the organisation at the grassroots level. And everyone accepts that Congress is finished. So, AAP will focus on challenging BJP,” said Sorathiya, who also attended the Delhi meeting.
In Surat the AAP had to deal with defections after three of its councillors joined the BJP within a year of the SMC elections, which brought the number of the party’s councillors down to 24. In what could be a demonstration of how to play an effective opposition and motivate the new MLAs, the party has posted on social media the pictures of roads “carpeted” by its councillors in their respective areas across Surat from their local area development funds.
The AAP councillor from ward no. 3, Mahesh Angad, who is also a member of the SMC’s roads and buildings committee, told The Indian Express how he repaired 16 such roads in his constituency in eight months, which were earlier in an “abysmal condition”. “These roads are internal street roads in my ward area. The work of 17 more such roads in my area is in progress. I personally took interest, keeping in mind interest of large number of people and took up the work of recarpeting of roads,” said Angad.
The five AAP MLAs — Bhupat Bhayani (Visavadar), Umesh Makwana (Botad), Hemant Khava (Jamjodhpur), Sudhir Vaghani (Gariadhar), and Chaitar Vasava (Dediapada) — will take their oaths on December 19.
According to Bhayani, the MLAs’ meeting with Kejriwal was extensive and went for at least two hours. All the MLAs stayed in Delhi for the night and only left for Gujarat on Thursday morning.
Soon after the outcome of the Gujarat elections, Bhayani had briefly hinted that he would join the BJP. Speaking to the media, he had said, “I will consult the people first”. He later said he “will see in future what to do”.
Before joining the AAP, Bhayani, who won from the seat dominated by Patidars, had been with the BJP.
