File picture of AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal.
After his Metro ride in Delhi, Aam Aadmi Party chief
Arvind Kejriwal is all set to take a local train in Mumbai today to kick start his three-day Maharashtra tour.
After landing at the airport, the 45-year-old will catch an auto-rickshaw to go to Andheri station in the Western suburbs of Mumbai which is barely 5 kms from the domestic terminal. The road show to the station will pass through AAP candidate Mayank Gandhi's constituency who is pitted against sitting MP from the Congress Gurudas Kamath. (
Battleground 2014: Live Blog)
From there he will hop on to the over-crowded "lifeline of Mumbai" and reach Churchgate station in South Mumbai where a private fund-raising meeting will be held. Following this he will embark on another road show traveling through the Mumbai South and Mumbai North East constituencies from where former banker Meera Sanyal and activist Medha Patkar will respectively contest.
Mumbai, AAP sources say, is critical to the party as it's from the Maximum City where huge funds are expected. Also after Delhi, AAP hopes to make an impact in the urban centers around Mumbai in not just the Lok Sabha elections but also the assembly elections which are scheduled to take place later this year.
But like in Gujarat, political fireworks are expected at his next destination: Nagpur in Vidarbha. This is where former BJP president and senior leader Nitin Gadkari is to make his Lok Sabha elections debut, as is AAP candidate Anjali Damania.
The RSS headquarters are based in Nagpur and Mr Gadkari is expected to win. It is here that Mr Kejriwal is likely to raise the alleged scam involving Mr Gadkari's Purti Group, which was perhaps one of the reasons his term as party president was not extended.
Mr Kejriwal is also scheduled to hold a fund-raising dinner at a luxury hotel in Nagpur at a price of Rs 10,000 per person on March 13.