Delhi Polls: AAP on people contact drive, Oppn says 'staged'

With Delhi Assembly polls round the corner, the ruling Aam Aadmi Party is conducting a string of townhall meetings where Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal personally engages with a large crowd and seeks direct feedback on the performance of his government.

The Congress has termed it a "stage-managed show" at the behest of election strategist Prashant Kishore, whereas the BJP is yet to devise a strategy to get its head around on this emerging political situation in the capital.

Kejriwal, leading the charge from the front, conducted the second townhall in Pitampura on Friday where he apparently drank a glass full of tap water to establish piped water is safe for human consumption, and took a dig at the BJP, which raised the issues on quality of drinking water.

He also emphasized free education and healthcare services should be primary responsibility of every elected government.

During the one-on-one interaction, Kejriwal sought feedback from senior citizens on the religious pilgrimage scheme for them.

Earlier this week, Kejriwal launched a report card describing the top 10 achievements of the government. He had said this report card will be taken to 35 lakh households as a part of a door-to-door campaign.

Senior Delhi Congress leader Haroon Yusuf termed this townhall meeting a "stage-managed show". "No random person is called to these meeting to discuss the real issues. This meeting are held with AAP supporters or people who are involved in the party. This has been designed by Prashant Kishore. Delhi is grappling with huge corruption especially at Tehsildar level," Yusuf told .

He also dismissed the government's performance report card. "This report card will be handed over to people who support the party," Yusuf said.

The AAP, through a well-planned strategy, is pushing short videos from the meetings to underscore Kejriwal's role in addressing common people's queries on various social media platforms.

The Delhi BJP unit has refrained from making a comment on this initiative by the Delhi Chief Minister. Two senior BJP leaders said they were not aware if these townhall meeting were to open to common people. "We do not know if these meeting are being attended by AAP supporters or common people," a BJP leader said.

The AAP is slated to conduct seven townhall meetings, on the government report, in addition with 700 mohalla sabhas followed by door-to-door campaign on Delhi government's performance report card.

(Sumit Saxena can be contacted at sumit.s@.in)

( With inputs from IANS )