NEW DELHI: Going all out to make inroads into Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home turf Gujarat, the AAP chief and Delhi Chief Minister, Arvind Kejriwal is all set to announce the party’s chief ministerial candidate for the elections on Friday. The race for the top berth in the party is between Patidar leader Gopal Italia and former TV journalist Isudan Gadhvi.
Last week, Kejriwal announced that his party’s chief ministerial candidate for Gujarat will be announced on November 4 based on the opinion of the people of the state. He appealed to the people to give their choice for AAP chief ministerial candidate via SMS, WhatsApp, voice mail or e-mail till 5 pm on November 3.
Earlier this year in Punjab, AAP had adopted a similar strategy to seek people’s opinion to choose its chief minister.
It is learnt that AAP chief ministerial candidate will be either Gadhvi or Italia as they are getting more support than any others. Before joining AAP in June last year, Gadhvi was a popular TV journalist and anchor in the state. AAP Gujarat unit chief Italia joined Patidar Aandolan after quitting his government job in 2017.
The chief ministerial candidates of the party fit the social equation of state. While Gadhvi belongs to Other Backward Castes (OBC), Italia belongs to the influential Patidar community.
The OBCs comprise around 48 per cent of the state population, while Patidar are nearly 25 per cent of Gujarat population having a strong presence in 70 out of total 182 Assembly seats.
Kejriwal, leading the party’s campaign from the front, announced several sops for the state including 300 units of free electricity per month. Kejriwal held multiple rallies and townhall meetings.
Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia and Rajya Sabha member Raghav Chadha also held several public meetings.
