Kejriwal launched ‘Make India No.1’ mission, to travel across country to rally people’s support, providing free education and healthcare to citizens, employment to youths, equal rights and dignity to women and fair price to farmers for their produce are needed to achieve the goal, he said.
Resolution of Arvind Kejriwal’s mission: Make India No. 1 : Free high-quality education; free high-quality healthcare; equal rights, security, and respect for women; and fair prices for farmer produce.
If the aim was to leave no doubt about his overarching political ambition for the 2024 general elections, Arvind Kejriwal, the Delhi Chief Minister and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) national convener, accomplished that feat during his speech at an AAP event in the national capital on Wednesday.
Kejriwal launched the “Make India Number One” campaign, inviting the country’s 130 million people to join the “national mission” on five projects: education, health, employment, women’s rights, and sustainable farming.
“I plan to travel across the country to persuade people to join the mission.” “It will be an alliance of 130 crore people,” Kejriwal said in front of a large crowd of AAP followers waving tricolors at Delhi’s Talkatora Stadium.
“This is not a party campaign; it has nothing to do with any party,” the AAP chief claimed, attempting to cast an apolitical halo around a bold political move.
Then came Kejriwal’s “pran (resolution)” of “not resting in peace until India becomes the number 1 country,” in what appeared to be carefully chosen terminologies with striking parallels to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Independence Day speech from the ramparts of the historic Red Fort.
However, the differences between the two speeches are equally pronounced. while PM Modi’s “panch prans” are based on the grand visions of culture and civilization, Kejriwal’s “panch sabse zaroori kaam” are rooted in the realities of everyday life on the ground,
Every child should have access to free quality education; every citizen should have access to free quality healthcare; no young person should be unemployed; women should have equal rights, security, and respect; and farmers should be paid a fair price for their produce – these are the five areas Kejriwal has identified as part of his proposed mission.
“Kejriwal has demonstrated administrative competence in these areas. People have endorsed this brand of politics of work. Modi’s political project complements his larger-than-life personality, which he has perfected over the years. Kejriwal needs to reframe his vision,” an AAP leader said.
While PM Modi’s “panch prans” are based on lofty ideals of culture and civilisation, Kejriwal’s “panch sabse zaroori kaam” are grounded in the realities of everyday life.
However, religion and caste issues registered a token presence on his “work-centric” agenda, defined in his words as “pyaar and mohabbat.”
“We cannot afford to fight because Hindus fight Muslims and Muslims fight Christians.” We must conduct and behave as a family. Let us put an end to hatred… “Every religion and community will have to unite,” Kejriwal said in the AAP’s “pragmatic vision statement.”
“By now, it is transparent that the AAP will not play to the BJP’s strengths. The idea is to bring them back to seemingly mundane issues of practical value in a person’s life,” an AAP official explained.
While the political ramifications of that strategy will become clearer in the coming days, as the AAP prepares to contest the Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh Assembly elections due by the end of this year, it also means that the AAP will remain noncommittal, even though not silent, on contentious issues such as civil liberties and majoritarianism. The party’s silence on the Gujarat government’s release of the Bilkis Bano gangrape case convicts is a case in point, which contrasted sharply with the strong condemnation of the BJP government’s move by many Opposition parties, from the Congress to the TRS.
“Without power, a party cannot successfully oppose the RSS-BJP agenda. Making sweeping comments that have no electoral impact is pointless. In an effort to defend the party’s strategy, AAP sources claimed that joining up with Congress or other parties would not benefit the party.
In his speech, Kejriwal also stated clearly that there was a very minimal chance that the AAP will join any opposition alliance before the 2024 elections. “We cannot leave the country to them” (old parties). Some of them pursue their goals by working for their families’ or friends’ interests,” he made fun of the BJP and the Congress, mentioning, “Over the previous 75 years, they have only done that.
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