Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Monday launched the 'Jail Ka Jawab Vote Se' theme ahead of the Lok Sabha elections. The announcement comes a day after the party held a daylong fasting protest to express solidarity with jailed AAP national convenor and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.
While addressing a press conference on Monday, AAP MP Sandeep Pathak, said "As you all saw that Kejriwal ji was put in jail to keep him away from the elections. Kejriwal ji spent his entire life struggling for the people. He considered all people of Delhi as his family and made arrangements for best education, health, electricity and water for all."
We will go to every house in Delhi with our 'Jail Ka Jawab Vote Se' campaign, he added.
"This campaign has started from today itself. Our workers are campaigning with the slogan from today on the 4 seats in Delhi where AAP is contesting," the AAP MP said.
Earlier, top AAP leaders held a daylong fast at Jantar Mantar to protest against Kejriwal's arrest by the ED and asserted that people will give a fitting reply to the BJP in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls for sending him to jail.
The AAP leaders also dared the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) at the Centre to impose President's rule in Delhi, claiming that the saffron party will be erased from the national capital in that case.
Scores of volunteers and supporters of the AAP took part in the fast, singing patriotic songs and carrying posters bearing an image of Kejriwal behind bars.
Similar protests were held in other states as well as by Indians abroad, including at the Harvard Square in Boston, the Hollywood Sign in Los Angeles, outside the Indian embassy in Washington DC, at the Times Square in New York and in Toronto, London and Melbourne, among other places, AAP leaders said.
Gopal Rai, the convenor of the party's Delhi unit, asserted that Kejriwal will come out of jail and join the country's fight against the BJP's "dictatorship".
The stage in which the AAP leaders were seated during the six-hour fast had an image of Kejriwal behind bars in the backdrop. Portraits of B R Ambedkar and Bhagat Singh flanking Mahatma Gandhi's photo were kept in front of the stage.
Addressing the protesters at Jantar Mantar, the AAP's Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh, who was recently granted bail by the Supreme Court in the Delhi excise "scam" case, asserted that "Kejriwal was, is and will remain honest".
Singh questioned Kejriwal's arrest by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in a money-laundering case linked to the liquor "scam".
He claimed that Kejriwal's name was mentioned by just four of the 456 witnesses of the CBI and the ED, the two agencies probing the case. "People know very well under what situation these witnesses named Kejriwal," the AAP leader said.
He asked the AAP volunteers to work harder to ensure the victory of the party candidates and those of the INDIA opposition bloc in the Lok Sabha polls to pave the way for the exit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah from power.
(With PTI inputs)
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