Out on signature drive, Sisodia feels the heat

AAP leader Manish Sisodia came under a barrage of uncomfortable questions on Wednesday during his party’s signature campaign in Patparganj Assembly constituency. Sisodia admitted his party committed a mistake by not seeking voter’s approval.

Modelled on the lines of last year’s bijli-paani andolan, the campaign is being seen as the beginning of party’s electoral campaign.

“What is the guarantee that party would complete its five year term if voted to power?” Vivek Rai, a resident of ward no. 217 at West Vinod Nagar, asked Sisodia before signing a petition to conduct fresh polls in Delhi.

While soliciting support for the signature campaign, the local MLA Sisodia and AAP workers handed out party pamphlets that addressed issue like rise in power and water tariffs, water shortage and power cuts, and corruption by police and MCD officials.

But during the party’s campaign, potential voters didn’t miss the opportunity to pitchfork local issues like sewage problem, water supply and MCD clearance for building. AAP members said they use messenger applications to keep a tab on complaint their complaints.

“Government has been slow,” said an AAP member Upendra Kumar, showing messenger groups named ‘PPGMain” and “MSisodiaMLAPPG” which local AAP volunteers use to relay information about the local issues.

“We try to be fast. But people are even faster,” he added, pointing out that it is difficult to keep up with demands.

During launch of the party’s door-to-door campaign in west Vinod Nagar, Sisodia said that next fortnight the party plans to reach out to people in all 70 Assembly constituencies.

“After seeing the response, we may plan to extend it later,” he added.
Delhi convenor Ashutosh and the state unit secretary Dilip Pandey also joined Sisodia during the launch of the campaign. Attacking BJP for avoiding elections in Delhi, Ashutosh accused the BJP’s central leadership of soft-pedalling the importance of fresh polls in Delhi.

“We want to educate people about the importance of having a government through this campaign so that accountablity can be fixed,” he said.