Sisodia’s return from prison boosts AAP campaign ahead of Haryana, Delhi assembly polls

The Aam Aadmi Party’s second-most senior leader and former deputy chief minister of Delhi, Manish Sisodia was released on bail by the Supreme Court on Friday. His release came after a prolonged period of 17 months in custody without trial. Sisodia’s bail is being viewed as a legal outcome that would significantly impact the prospects of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal to get relief from the court as well. 

Although Kejriwal has got bail in the PMLA case of the Enforcement Directorate (ED), he is still lodged in the Tihar jail in the same case registered by the CBI. 

While the AAP is hopeful that their supreme leader will soon be among them, Sisodia’s release has boosted the morale of the dejected party workers, with the incarceration of their senior leaders. In his first meeting with Delhi legislators after coming out of jail, Sisodia, without wasting any time, urged the party men to proactively start working on the upcoming elections in Haryana in October this year and in Delhi early next year. 

Different strategies for Haryana and Delhi are being worked out, sources said. Sisodia met all MLAs in a marathon meeting on Monday. Delhi CM’s wife, Sunita Kejriwal, who is now being addressed as a senior party leader in the AAP’s press releases, along with National General Secretary (Organisation) Dr. Sandeep Pathak, Delhi State Convenor Gopal Rai, cabinet ministers Saurabh Bharadwaj, Atishi, Imran Hussain were also present in the meeting.  

AAP Rajya Sabha member from Punjab, Sandeep Pathak said that 45 public meetings have already been held in Haryana and as many will be conducted in days to come. 

“This time meetings will be bigger than before. We have already held a small public meeting in every village of Haryana once. The next phase of these meetings will start soon. Manish Sisodia will also go to Haryana to campaign. We hope that the way the circumstances are developing, CM Arvind Kejriwal will also be out of jail soon. This will give more strength to the party and there will be vigorous election campaigns,” Pathak said. 

Sisodia, meanwhile, tried to pursue the “enthusiastic” party workers to focus on positive and work-based politics and exhorted them to go among the public with “full strength”.  

In contrast to Haryana, BJP-bashing dominates the discussions on Delhi in AAP deliberations. Sisodia is all set to embark on a padyatra from August 14 in the national capital, which will pass through all assembly segments. Sisodia took stock of the work being done by the state legislators and a guideline has been shared with them on how they should go about their work in their respective jurisdictions. The AAP is also organising ‘Vikas Sabhas’ (development meetings) in Delhi to assess the outcome of their work and devise future plans accordingly. 

Reminiscent of their strategy before the Lok Sabha polls, the AAP senior leaders are continuing to emphasise exposing the role of the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) in stopping the 10-year-old party in its tracks. 

Ways to counter BJP's 'Delhi ke kaam roko abhiyan' (Stop Delhi's Works Mission) are being pondered upon and the party is planning to go to every assembly on foot to expose the BJP's reality. 

“In the history of independent India, the AAP is the first party on which attacks are being made one after the other. They have even put the top leader of the party in jail. The BJP people must also be thinking that after freedom fighters, for the first time, such people have come who are neither breaking nor bowing down,” Pathak said. 

“We will not let the BJP’s conspiracy and politics of harassment succeed, which also hurts the people of Delhi. The amount of work that the AAP has done in Delhi in the last 10 years, no other party government in the whole country has done that much.”