Published 14:46 IST, January 16th 2020
Kejriwal vs old friends: Gautam Gambhir's scathing response to AAP's 'Civil War' attack
As the poll campaign for Delhi assembly election began, a war of poster has taken place between Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal's AAP and BJP's Gautam Gambhir
As the poll campaign for Delhi assembly election began, there is another war of memes going on between the three contending parties - AAP, BJP and the Congress on Twitter. On Thursday, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's party posted a poster of Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari and East Delhi MP Gautam Gambir quoting their contradictory remarks on subsidy for the people of Delhi and captioned it as "Civil War."
In a befitting response, Gambhir, within hours, took to Twitter to post a picture of Kejriwal and former AAP leaders who resigned from the party citing differences with the party chief. He called Kejriwal a 'dictator'. Around him, the poster showed the founding members of AAP - Yogendra Yadav, Prashant Bhushan, Kumar Vishwas, Shazia Ilmi, terming them as victims.
AAP began a massive Twitter campaign even before dates of the assmebly polls were announced. It has come up with 2-minute, 52-second campaign song titled "Lage Raho Kejriwal". The song has been created by music composer Vishal Dadlani and encompasses around AAP's poll slogan - "Acche Beete Paanch Saal, Lage Raho Kejriwal". It has also launched a scathing dig on the Opposition as the BJP and Congress who are yet to announce their CM candidate for the elections. The party tweeted a picture of Arvind Kejriwal juxtaposed with a white background, and the caption read, "Kejriwal vs Who?"
One such attack, however, irked the BJP and the saffron party complained to the EC and sent a 500 crore defamation notice to AAP. AAP had posted a video of Manoj Tiwari dancing on the song "Lage Raho Kejriwal."
Delhi Assembly Elections
The Election Commission announced that Delhi will go to polls in a single-phase on February 8 and the counting of votes will take place on February 11. The last day of filing nominations for the candidates will be on January 21 and the last day to withdraw nominations will be for January 24.
The BJP and Congress are yet to name their Chief Ministerial faces. For the BJP, names such as Manoj Tiwari, Hardeep Puri and Harsh Vardhan have been touted, though Amit Shah has stated in the absence of a formal name that the BJP would contest under PM Modi's leadership. The ruling AAP is contesting the election with Kejriwal leading them.
In what is the major highlight of the Delhi elections scheduled next year is Prashant Kishor's team working with Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. While poll strategist Prashant Kishor and his team I-PAC is strategizing his re-election for the next term with a target of "Abki baar 67 paar"(This time we will cross 67), BJP, which has not held the Delhi Assembly since 1998, has strongly hinted towards Manoj Tiwari being its CM candidate.
Kejriwal's AAP had bagged 67 out of the 70 seats of the Delhi Assembly in the last elections. In the past six months, he has rolled out many schemes and has claimed that his party is the only party to fulfill all manifesto promises. BJP has dismissed his claims and called his schemes a freebie before elections.
Updated 14:46 IST, January 16th 2020