NEW DELHI: Before coming on board to advise AAP national convenor Arvind Kejriwal for campaigning in Delhi assembly polls, election strategist Prashant Kishor advised the Chief Minister to first fulfil the promises his party had made to the people of Delhi to win their trust.
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) which won 67 seats in the 2015 assembly elections had made 70 promises to the people, including a strict Jan Lokpal, free Wi-Fi, marshals in DTC buses, installation of CCTV cameras across the city to improve security, half electricity price, free water and many others.
AAP had selected Kishor’s consultancy firm, Indian Political Action Committee (I-PAC), to design its campaign for the Delhi assembly polls in December last year.
A senior I-PAC source said before agreeing to come on board to look after the AAP campaign, Kishor advised Kejriwal to fulfill promises he had made before 2015 assembly polls. The source said it was after Kishor’s advice that the party swung into action and started the installation of CCTV cameras across the national capital.
The source said AAP had agreed to keep its word on providing free Wi-Fi high-speed internet service in the national capital.
The AAP government had started the installation of CCTV cameras and the Wi-Fi internet services late in 2019.
The I-PAC source also said that Kishor then came up with the idea of guarantee a card to ensure services to the people. The ‘Kejriwal ka Guarantee Card’ was released by the Chief Minister on January 19, almost a month after Kishor officially took over the campaigning of the party.
The ‘Kejriwal ka Guarantee Card’ had 10 “guarantees”: a promise to reduce air pollution in Delhi by three times, plant more than two crore trees to make Delhi green, continuation of 24-hour uninterrupted power supply and 200 units of free electricity for all, freeing the city from the web of wires and taking electricity to each household through underground cable, 24-hour pure piped drinking water to each house in the next five years and continuing a scheme to provide 20,000 liters of free water, giving a world-class education facility for each child, better health facilities for all, and the “biggest and cheapest” transport facility for the city.
The source said Kishor even asked AAP leaders to not target the BJP on the national security issues and keep its campaign focused entirely on Delhi.
“It was the reason why Kejriwal was not attacking Prime Minister Narendra Modi throughout the campaigning,” the source said.
Even Kejriwal’s ‘temple trot’ before the elections was planned strategically as the BJP was attacking him by calling him “terrorist”, he said.
“During the planning of Kejriwal’s temple visit, it was known that BJP leaders will attack the AAP leader and thus it will work negatively for them,” he added.
The AAP on Tuesday pulled off a stunner again as it won 62 out of 70 seats in Delhi. The BJP won eight seats while the Congress drew a blank for the second time.
(Anand Singh can be contacted at anand.s@ians.in)