Kejriwal attempts to make a mark in poll-bound Gujarat
The HinduFrom riding an auto rickshaw to visiting schools and temples and announcing sops for different constituencies, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has taken the ruling BJP head-on in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s native State Gujarat which goes for the assembly polls in three months. Since March this year, the Aam Aadmi Party supremo has made a dozen trips to Gujarat, visited various regions, addressed rallies, offered prayers at temples and held town hall interactions with different communities in a bid to position the AAP, a new political start-up in the State, as the main challenger of the ruling party that is in power since 1998. During every trip to Gujarat, Mr. Kejriwal doubles down on what the BJP leaders including PM Narendra Modi call “revdi” while asking, “What’s better, the government providing free education and health or waiving loans of certain corporates?” In his bid to be the main challenger of the BJP in its strongest bastion, Mr. Kejriwal has apparently forced both parties, the ruling BJP and the opposition Congress, to follow the narrative he has set. If the ruling BJP has hiked the salaries of cops and turned its attention to improving the quality of schools in Gujarat, the opposition Congress has more or less copied the major sops like free electricity up to 300 units and setting up of 3000 new English medium schools if the party is voted to power in the State.