The release on bail of all the top Aam Aadmi Party leaders who had been in jail for alleged corruption, the latest being former Delhi minister Satyender Jain, comes as a shot in the arm for the party months ahead of the Assembly elections in the national capital.
ALSO READ: ‘Quit if you have any shame’: AAP tells Swati Maliwal after her remarks on Atishi
The party plans to make the release on bail of its leaders that include former chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, former deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia and senior party leader and Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh among others an important issue in the elections.
The line taken by the party with regard to the release of its leaders from jail is that it stands vindicated on its claims that the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Centre has unleashed the investigating agencies against its prominent functionaries in an effort to demoralise and ultimately finish the AAP. Kejriwal has often described the AAP as the most persecuted party in the history of India’s politics.
ALSO READ: 'Grave disrespect to an elected woman CM': AAP shares pics of Atishi working amid packed cartons
The party has launched an intensive Jan Sampark programme in the national capital, the exercise led by Kejriwal. The former chief minister has in fact gone to the people on the basis of his stand that he will occupy the post only after getting a ‘certificate of honesty’ from the people with regard to the allegations of corruption against him, mainly related to the excise policy case. His plea to the people is that they should express their support for him by voting for him and his party and only then will he occupy the chief minister’s post again.
After his release from jail, Sisodia had earlier embarked upon a padayatra in the national capital, the idea behind the exercise being to convey to the people that he and the other leaders of the AAP were being targeted by the BJP for the good work they were doing and because the saffron party felt the only way to win elections in Delhi was by putting its leaders behind bars.
A prominent aspect of the Jan Sampark programme, which was launched on October 16 and will be on till October 29, is to convey to the people the idea that the AAP leaders have suffered at the hands of the BJP in the service of the denizens and gain their sympathy.
“I have prepared a letter. Our workers will go door to door with the letter which tells the truth about why I was arrested. It was not because of corruption. It was to stop the work we were doing for the people of Delhi,” Kejriwal said at the launch of the outreach programme.