Arvind Kejriwal said Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) volunteers must help it defeat the BJP
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Thursday had a curious appeal for Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) volunteers spread across India. Asking party workers from across the country to come to Delhi to campaign for the Lok Sabha elections, the AAP chief said they had to help the party defeat the BJP in the capital.
"I request all the workers to take leave from their job till elections. Barring Punjab and Haryana, workers from across the country should come to Delhi," he said in a tweet in Hindi.
Punjab and Haryana are the two other states where AAP is contesting the national elections.
The Aam Aadmi Party relied on a grassroots-level door-to-door campaign by committed volunteers to win the 2015 Delhi elections with an historic 67-out-of-70 mandate.
Mr Kejriwal, who launched the AAP manifesto for the polls earlier in the day, also targeted Congress chief Rahul Gandhi, saying he will be the only person responsible if the BJP comes back to power.
Days after both the parties failed to form an alliance in Delhi for the Lok Sabha elections, Mr Kejriwal said the AAP had never "dreamt" of forming an alliance with the Congress but had agreed "to save the country".
"I can say that we tried our best to form an alliance with Congress and if the BJP comes back to power, only one person would be responsible for it and that would be Rahul Gandhi," he said.
"I want to ask Rahul Gandhi which alliance is formed on Twitter. If they were serious about forming an alliance they should have come to the table for negotiations. Giving statements in public is not going to solve the problem," he said.
This week, both the Congress and AAP named candidates for all seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi, ending any possibility of a tie-up between the two after weeks of hard negotiations.
Both parties had held off on naming candidates, apparently leaving room for the slight chance that an alliance materialised.
Delhi will vote on May 12 to elect seven members to the Lok Sabha. Results are due on May 23.