Kejriwal takes on BJP in Gujarat with polls around the corner

The BJP has been in power in Gujarat since 1998

From riding an auto rickshaw to visiting schools and temples and announcing sops for different constituencies, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has taken the ruling BJP head-on in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s native State Gujarat which goes for the assembly polls in three months. 

Since March this year, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) supremo has made a dozen trips to Gujarat, visited various regions, addressed rallies, offered prayers at temples and held town hall interactions with different communities in a bid to position the AAP, a new political start-up in the State, as the main challenger of the ruling party that is in power since 1998. 

So far, he has announced a wide range of pre-poll sops including free electricity, unemployment allowance to youth, monthly allowance to women, stipend to new lawyers and free education and healthcare services to all. 

On September 12 evening, the Delhi Chief had dinner at an auto-rickshaw driver’s home in Ahmedabad’s Ghatlodia, which is the assembly constituency of Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel. 

At the Town Hall meeting in which the Delhi CM interacted with more than 500 auto-rikshaw drivers in the city, Vikram Dantani, an auto driver invited Mr. Kejriwal for dinner, which the latter accepted.

However, the drama occurred when Mr. Kejriwal was briefly stopped by the police for riding the auto-rickshaw. The police stopped him from travelling in the rikshaw citing security concerns, which led to heated arguments between the CM and police.

Following the argument, the CM eventually was allowed to travel to the auto driver’s house in the three-wheeler which was escorted by two police cars, while one policeman sat beside the driver in the driver’s seat.