New Delhi: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and his Punjab counterpart Bhagwant Mann will today address a rally in Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh, where polls are to be held at the end of the year.
The rally, to be held at BHEL Dussehra Maidan in the state capital, is expected to be a show of strength by the Kejriwal-led party, which is hoping to make a mark in the politics of Madhya Pradesh politics that so far has been centered around the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has been in power for a dominant part of the last two decades, and the Congress.
An Aam Aadmi Party leader said that Kejriwal is expected to make some big announcements at the rally, PTI reported.
“Kejriwal is expected to make some big announcements. We are giving very cheap electricity in Delhi, and free quality education and health facilities to the poor unlike what is happening in MP. Here power and health facilities are very costly,” an AAP leader told PTI from the rally venue.
“We have worked hard to ensure one lakh people across MP attend the rally. After this, we are going to hold big rallies in all the divisional headquarters in the state. AAP has enrolled more than five lakh members since a drive was launched by organisation general secretary Sandeep Pathak on February 4,” former MP AAP chief Pankaj Singh said.
The AAP, which recently announced it would contest all 230 Assembly seats in MP, is buoyed by its performance in the urban local body polls in July-August last year, where it claimed it had garnered 6.3 per cent of the vote share.
It had fielded 1,500 candidates for local body polls and the party managed to win the mayor’s post in Singrauli in the state’s Vindh region.
"Fifty-two candidates won in the local body polls, while 135-140 candidates came second. In panchayat polls, which are held without party symbols, AAP-supported candidates won 10 posts of district panchayat, 23 of janpad, 119 sarpanches, and 250 panches," Singh said.
The 2018 elections in Madhya Pradesh threw up a hung Assembly, with the Congress emerging as the largest party with 114 seats in the 230-member House. The BJP won 109 seats.
The Congress formed a coalition government under Kamal Nath, but it fell in March 2020 after several MLAs loyal to Jyotiraditya Scindia walked out and joined the BJP, paving the way for Shivraj Singh Chouhan to return as chief minister.
