‘This civic poll is hyper local’

AAP’s poll strategy is simple — just do the basics right, says party leader

De14 Ashish Talwar

From monitoring door-to-door campaigns and organising roadshows to addressing hyper-local problems of residents in wards across the city, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is doing it all to wrest control of the municipal corporations from the BJP. The Hindu speaks to Ashish Talwar, senior AAP leader and the man behind the party’s “issue-based campaigns”, on how the momentum is rising, less than 10 days before the polls.

How have the municipal elections in Delhi changed over the past few years? How are the current elections different?

I remember the 1997 Delhi civic body elections — they were more intensive and competitive than the 1998 Assembly elections in the Capital. The Delhi municipal elections have always been very competitive but never highlighted the local problems of the people. The current elections have a local flavour to them, thus the hyper-local campaigning. Now with the advent of text messages and other technology, and also the innovations that the AAP brought in 2013, our message is reaching all corners of the city.

Your opponents have been levying new allegations against the party daily. Do you think the negative publicity will affect the AAP’s image ahead of the elections?

Time and again, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and his Deputy Manish Sisodia have said that if the Bharatiya Janata Party is able to prove that we’ve done anything wrong then hang us. The Delhi Police, the Central Bureau of Investigation and even the Anti Corruption Branch [ACB] are with them. What’s stopping them? It’s for the people to see how much the government has done over the past two years. Electricity bills have been halved and water up to 20,000 litres made free. They will judge us by our work and not by baseless allegations.

What was the campaign strategy for these elections? How has it changed as the polling date draws nearer?

The strategy is very simple — just do the basics right. Our focus is on three issues — garbage-free Delhi, corruption-free civic bodies and house tax maafi.

The campaigns were divided into three phases to spread this message. In the first phase, we concentrated on door-to-door campaigns, which have become something of a signature of the AAP. We organised projector shows in each ward to spread Mr. Kejriwal’s message and conducted nukkad sabhas to assess the problems of each ward. We’ve covered over 26 lakh houses in the city and not randomly. Our teams monitored the coverage in a systematic manner.

In the second phase, we widened our reach through mass contact with residents of each ward. Senior leaders, including Mr. Kejriwal, have been addressing roadshows in each ward.

Our campaigns are primarily centred on issues such as abolishment of house tax and power subsidies to people living in rented accommodations. We have upped the ante for the benefit of the people and other parties are being forced to keep up.

Why has the AAP been constantly talking about faulty electronic voting machines?

Every day, fresh cases of ‘pro-BJP’ EVMs have been coming to light. It all points towards mass EVM manipulation. We have to revert to paper ballots to restore the sanctity of the electoral process.