Manoj Sorathiya: From Anna Hazare days to now, an AAP man in Gujarat

Sorathiya said, “When they (Kejriwal and Sisodia) parted from the (IAC) movement, I went along with them. After they launched AAP, I joined the party. I started working for the party in Gujarat, and in 2014 under the banner of AAP, we fielded candidates. After the Delhi Assembly elections in 2015, where AAP won 67 out of 70 seats, Kejriwal called a meeting in Delhi. Along with Kishor Desai (former AAP Gujarat convenor), Dr. Kanubhai Kalsariya (ex-BJP MLA, former AAP Gujarat convenor and now Congress leader) and Ashok Jadwani, I attended it, and was told to expand our party activities in Gujarat.”

Sorathiya’s father and grandfather Nagjibhai had supported Kalsariya when he had successfully led the farmers’ movement against the Nirma cement plant in Mahuva of Bhavnagar in 2011, which had led to the cancellation of the plant’s environmental clearance. Sorathiya says, “Later in 2014, I brought Kalsariya to AAP. Similarly, I brought Isudan Gadhvi, Gopal Italia and Mahesh Sawani to the party. Sawani left due to some reasons. Under my leadership, we contested municipal elections in Surat in 2021 and got 27 councillors elected.”

Sorathiya says, “My family was traditionally BJP voters. But all of us shifted our allegiance to AAP, because of its agenda of providing education, health and basic facilities for the poor, which should have been provided by the BJP in Gujarat.”

After 2020, he adds, AAP stepped up its activities in Gujarat. “He started visiting the state frequently, with other AAP leaders. We started the Jan Samvedna Mulakat rally in Gujarat in 2021, through which we got immense support from the people covering 1,600 villages and conducting gram sabhas across the state.”

Sorathiya claims this was what led the BJP to replace the entire Vijay Rupani government in Gujarat to bring in Bhupendra Patel.

On August 29, when Sorathiya was assaulted by alleged supporters of the BJP as they were setting up the party’s Ganesh pandal, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal came to meet him and later paid a visit to the pandal at Punagam.

About the party’s expansion plans in Gujarat, Sorathiya said, “Today, we have 5.50 lakh organisational members and 20 lakh registered members in Gujarat. Apart from this, we have given guaranteed registration cards to 50 lakh people in Gujarat, to those who had supported our agenda of 300 units of free power, Rs 1,000 to unmarried women, 10 lakh jobs, good education, free health, etc. All these have been done door-to-door. Our party used the same strategy in the Punjab, where over 20 lakh people took our guarantee cards.”

Detailing their work, Sorathiya adds: “I received a letter from a woman in rural Ahmedabad that her husband had lung cancer. She had got him admitted to Ahmedabad Civil Hospital, but due to her poor financial condition, she could not get quality treatment. We made arrangements for her husband’s free treatment at a hospital in Delhi… She will be leaving in the next five days with her husband.”