Arvind Kejriwal was on Tuesday virtually declared the chief ministerial candidate in Punjab by his Aam Aadmi Party, injecting a new dimension to what is considered a three-way race in the assembly polls.
"You vote thinking that you are voting to make Arvind Kejriwal as the chief minister (of Punjab). Your vote is for Kejriwal," Delhi's Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said while addressing a public gathering at village Balongi in Mohali.
The AAP, which first captured power in Delhi in 2013 on the back of its civil society campaign against corruption, has been steadily making inroad in Punjab. It had won four Lok Sabha seats in 2014 but has since been marred by infighting.
Sisodia assured the people that Kejriwal would honour all the promises made by the party with the people of Punjab after coming to power.
"People were asking me who will be the Punjab chief minister. I want to say one thing here that you should believe that Arvind Kejriwal is going to be Punjab's CM," he said.
However, in the same breath, Sisodia said, "Whosoever will be the CM, it shall be the responsibility of Kejriwal to get all the promises honoured.... I give you guarantee in this regard."
Urging people to vote for party's candidate from Mohali Narinder Singh Shergill, Sisodia asked people to bring AAP to the power in order to put the state on the right track.
Delhi Chief Minister Kejriwal has maintained that AAP would not announce chief ministerial candidate in Punjab.
The AAP's national convenor had reportedly said that the CM would be elected by the legislators after the polls.
Meanwhile, Sisodia said Punjab is passing through a ‘difficult phase’ and needs an honest government to prosper.
Addressing a series of election meetings in Mohali, Anandpur Sahib, Sahenwal and Ludhiana West, Sisodia claimed Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has given people of the country a ‘hope’ and the AAP is the ‘only party’ which can fight against corruption and usher in development.
Alleging that successive Congress and Shiromani Aakali Dal-Bharatiya Janata Party governments have ‘ruined’ Punjab and both are responsible for ‘drug menace’ in the state, he claimed people of Punjab cannot afford to hand over the state to those who run ‘drug mafia and play with lives of youth’.
Punjab cannot survive without farming and this is the area where the SAD-BJP government has ‘miserably failed’, he alleged, adding farmers are committing suicide and youths have no job.
“The people of Punjab have no future if corrupt political parties were not shown the door,” he claimed.
He alleged that health and education sectors in Punjab are in a critical situation and claimed the AAP government in Delhi has brought radical changes in health and education sectors in the national capital.
Informing that the Delhi model would be replicated in Punjab if the AAP comes to power, Sisodia claimed 1,000 schools have been modernised and same number of mohalla clinics set up in the national capital.
