Under intense pressure to announce the Aam Aadmi Party’s chief ministerial face for the February 14 elections in Punjab, the state where it sees its prospects of government formation and horns in dilemma over a tough choice, AAP convener Arvind Kejriwal did what he did. Does best – go to people. With two-time AAP MP from Sangrur and state unit president Bhagwant Mann on one side and Punjab in-charge Raghav Chadha on the other, Kejriwal said, “I suggested that Bhagwant Mann be made the chief ministerial face of Punjab. However, Mann said that the chief minister’s post should not be decided behind closed doors, let the people of Punjab decide.
The Delhi Chief Minister then issued a phone number ‘7074870748’ to reach out to the people of Punjab and state their choices, underlining that this is the first time that a party is going to take a public decision. Its chief ministerial face. This number will be open till January 17 and Kejriwal said that based on the responses received by the party, the party will announce its CM pick. He has already said that AAP’s chief ministerial face will be announced next week and that he will be a Sikh of Punjab.
Read also | AAP Punjab President Mann denies alliance with SSM, says party will go to polls with CM face
This unconventional way of choosing a chief minister for Punjab, a state fraught with many challenges unlike Delhi, is not a direct attempt by the party to garner support for Bhagwant Mann, who is, in fact, the party’s most recognizable face. The state has direct links with the public after Arvind Kejriwal and especially in the Malwa region, which incidentally gave AAP 18 of the 20 seats it won in the 2017 assembly elections.
And unlike Uttarakhand, where Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia had proposed the name of Colonel Ajay Kothiyal and asked people whether the latter would be acceptable or not, in Punjab, the AAP convener did not directly promote Bhagwant Mann’s name. And instead the left is open for the three crore Punjabis to come back with their choices.
Asked at the press conference if the ‘referendum’ brings up a candidate who does not belong to the party, Kejriwal replied that Bhagwant Mann himself would reach out to that person in that matter. Asked if he himself was in the race, Kejriwal again dismissed it, as he has repeatedly done in the past.
How are the chief ministerial candidates usually decided by political parties? The central leadership imposes a candidate and the elected legislators choose the leader of the legislature party in the house. In this case, Kejriwal has apparently deviated from this norm.
In 2013, when the newly formed AAP made a grand debut in Delhi, winning 28 seats and running short of 8 to form the government, party chief Arvind Kejriwal did the unthinkable by launching a ‘referendum’ in the capital organized by his own party. To gauge the mood of residents on whether the AAP should form the government with outside support from the Congress, which coincidentally had eight seats.
The party was born out of the Jan Lokpal movement, which consistently targeted the UPA 2 government with scathing attacks, including from the top Congress leadership. Therefore, joining hands with the Congress after AAP’s first election was neither an automatic nor an easy option for the party. The Aam Aadmi Party’s ‘referendum’ paved the way for government formation in 2014 and paved the way for AAP in successive elections.
While Bhagwant Mann has taken pride of place alongside the AAP chief in the party’s recent outreach, the campaign in Punjab is led by none other than Arvind Kejriwal: it is ‘Kejriwal ki guarantee’, ‘Kejriwal vs Baaki’, ‘Kejriwal model’. , A video tweeted recently by the party’s handle, “The wait is finally over, the Kejriwal anthem for Punjab elections has finally arrived”, completely dominating the images of the AAP convener, with Mann only for a few seconds after the latter. were visible in half.
Read also | Chandigarh civic poll victory will show how far AAP can take Congress in Punjab
While elections are contested in the name of the tallest leader of the party, the local leadership is also given an honorable place to emerge as a challenger to local leaders in rival parties—in this case Charanjit Singh Channi, Navjot Singh Sidhu and Sunil Jakhar. Congress, Akali Dal’s Prakash and Sukhbir Badal and Punjab Lok Congress’s Captain Amarinder Singh. You have not prepared Bhagwant Mann to take this post till date.
The move to hold a plebiscite for AAP’s chief ministerial candidate could pave the way for Bhagwant Mann. This gives party chief Arvind Kejriwal, who is known to take high risks, elbow room for the final decision and breaks open possibilities for an unconventional option.
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