New Delhi:

With Delhi Chief Minister and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) supremo Arvind Kejriwal still in jail, his close confidante and former deputy Manish Sisodia has taken charge of the party’s campaign for the assembly polls in the national capital and Haryana.

Mr Sisodia, who has been granted bail by the Supreme Court in corruption and money laundering cases linked to the Delhi liquor policy case, will today hold a meeting of the senior party members.

The 52-year-old walked out of Tihar jail on Friday after spending 17 months behind bars, giving a shot to the AAP in its arm, which is still trying to fight the setback it received after its chief, Mr Kejriwal, was sent to jail in a case related to the alleged liquor policy scam.

The meeting of the AAP leaders is scheduled to be held at 6 pm at Mr Sisodia’s residence. 

Assembly elections in Haryana, where the AAP has announced to contest all 90 assembly seats, are due later this year, while polls in 70 constituencies of Delhi are expected to take place in the beginning of 2025.

Manish Sisodia Is Key Face Of AAP

Manish Sisodia, the former deputy chief minister of Delhi, has been the key face behind the rise of the AAP since its inception after the 2011 anti-corruption movement.

The AAP credits Mr Sisodia for “underscoring his pivotal role in shaping the multi-faceted governance landscape (of Delhi)” and “revolutionalising” the education system of Delhi government schools.

Before signing off his cabinet responsibilities, he held 18 crucial portfolios, including education, finance, planning land and building, vigilance services, women and child development, as well as art, culture, and languages, among others.

He, however, resigned from the Delhi cabinet on February 28, 2023, two days after the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) arrested him for alleged irregularities in the formulation and implementation of the now-scrapped Delhi liquor policy 2021-22.

Mr Sisodia has won the Delhi assembly elections thrice, securing the Patparganj constituency in East Delhi.

New Delhi:

With assembly polls in key states coming up, Congress Parliamentary Party chairperson Sonia Gandhi today said the “mahaul (public mood)” is in the Congress’s favour, but there is a need to sustain the momentum and goodwill generated for it in the Lok Sabha elections.

“We must not become complacent and over confident…I dare say that if we perform well, reflecting the trend that we witnessed in the Lok Sabha elections, national politics will undergo a transformation,” she told the Congress Parliamentary Party (CPP).

Mrs Gandhi also accused the Modi government of not drawing the right lessons from “their significant decline” in the Lok Sabha elections and persisting with their policy of “dividing communities and spreading an atmosphere of fear and animosity”.

“Fortunately, the Supreme Court intervened at the right time,” she said in an apparent reference to the stay on the orders passed by Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand government asking eateries along the Kanwar Yatra route to display the name of owners.

“But this can only be a temporary respite. Look at how the rules have been suddenly changed to permit the bureaucracy to participate in the activities of the RSS. It calls itself a cultural organisation but the whole world knows that it is the BJP’s political and ideological base,” Mrs Gandhi said.

Noting that elections will be held in four states, she urged party leaders to sustain the momentum and goodwill that had been generated for the party in the Lok Sabha elections.

“We must not become complacent and over confident. The ‘mahaul’ does favour us, but we have to work unitedly with a sense of purpose. I dare say that if we perform well, reflecting the trend that we witnessed in the Lok Sabha elections, national politics will undergo a transformation,” Mrs Gandhi said.

Her remarks come ahead of assembly polls in Haryana, Maharashtra and Jharkhand as also the possibility of elections in Jammu and Kashmir this year.

She also slammed the Union Budget, saying that the pressing demands of farmers and youth in particular, have been totally ignored.

Allocations in a number of vital sectors have not done justice to the tasks required to be fulfilled, she said.

“There has been widespread disappointment, in spite of the prime minister, the finance minister and others to talk up the Budget and its so-called accomplishments. The Union Government, especially its top leadership, continues to be self-delusional as crores of families across the country are devastated by mounting unemployment and price rise,” she said.
 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)