LS elections: Sunita Kejriwal likely to join AAP's campaign in Delhi

The Aam Aadmi Party's campaigning for the Lok Sabha polls will get a boost with Sunita Kejriwal likely to hold roadshows in Delhi beginning this weekend in the absence of her husband Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, party leaders said on Thursday.

Sunita is slowly emerging out of the shadows to assume a bigger role to give a fillip to the AAP's campaigning which has been affected by Kejriwal's arrest by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in a money laundering case in March.

The Delhi chief minister's judicial custody has been extended till May 7.

"The chief minister's wife is scheduled to attend her first roadshow in Kondli reserved assembly constituency represented by Kuldeep Kumar, who is the AAP's East Delhi Lok Sabha seat candidate, in the coming weekend," said a party functionary.

 

Sunita will also attend roadshows in the other three Lok Sabha seats contested by the AAP in Delhi, he said.

Delhi AAP convener Gopal Rai said the next phase of party's Lok Sabha campaign 'Jail Ka Jawab Vote Se' (response to imprisonment (of Kejriwal) with vote), will begin from April 27.
 

"Sunita Kejriwal, the wife of Chief Minister and AAP convener Arvind Kejriwal, will also go among the people," Rai said.

AAP candidate from East Delhi Kuldeep Kumar told PTI, "This is my good fortune that she chose East Delhi to start the Lok Sabha campaign and she specially chose that area where I started my political career and from where I have got love and blessings. People of Delhi and the Kondli area are standing with her during this time."

He said that she was standing "rock solid" against the "authoritarian regime" in the country and inspired the AAP volunteers.

AAP Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh said in a press conference that Sunita Kejriwal will campaign in different areas of Delhi. Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann will also campaign in Delhi, he added.

Singh said the AAP's main slogan is 'Jail Ka Jawab Vote Se'.

Kejriwal, who is like a son of Delhi people and who arranged free education, health, water, electricity facilities, has been put in jail by the BJP government and he must be released from there, Singh said.

The AAP, which is contesting the Lok Sabha polls in an alliance with the Congress in Delhi, has fielded its candidates in East Delhi, West Delhi, South Delhi and New Delhi seats.

The Congress has fielded its candidates in North East Delhi, North West Delhi and Chandni Chowk seats.

Since the chief minister's arrest on March 21, Sunita Kejriwal has been acting as a channel of communication between her husband and the AAP and its MLAs. She has so far held three digital media briefings mainly focusing on communicating the chief minister's messages to the people and his ministers.

However, in March and earlier this month, she addressed rallies of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) bloc parties in Delhi and Jharkhand.

In both the rallies, she declared six guarantees of the AAP convener, including free power to poor, good health and educational facilities in each village and towns in the country among others, provided INDIA bloc was voted to power at the Centre.