AAP plans auto-rickshaw ride to success, again

Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief Arvind Kejriwal’s posters on the capital’s auto-rickshaws, a common sight before the legislative Assembly elections here in December 2013, are back. The party is replicating the campaign for the Lok Sabha elections.

Ahead of the elections, the party plans to stick its posters behind 30,000 of the capital’s 80,000 auto-rickshaws. For this, it has estimated an expenditure of Rs 100 for every auto, a total expenditure of Rs 30 lakh. The Election Commission has capped poll expenditure in every Delhi constituency at Rs 70 lakh.

As was the case during the Assembly elections, this time, too, Kejriwal, not the party candidates in the seven constituencies here, will be depicted on the posters. At one of his rallies, Kejriwal had acknowledged the role of ‘autowallas’ and thanked them for playing a key role in the party’s stellar show.

So far, the AAP has printed 10,000 posters. It has also set up an ‘auto team’ under Sanjay Sharma, a party volunteer and an auto-rickshaw driver for the past 20 years. “So far, 1,500 posters have been put up behind autos. We plan to come out with around 30,000 such posters,” Sharma said.

For putting up such posters on their vehicles, auto-rickshaw drivers do not take any money from the party.

Many auto drivers have come forward for the campaign. Shahid Khan, one such driver, doesn’t mind waiting outside the party’s office for an hour to collect posters for auto-rickshaws plying in his constituency. “My wife knows what I am up to and she supports the cause. People like me are desperate for a change and the AAP is the only hope,” says Khan.

Ahead of the Assembly elections in December last year, the AAP’s campaign had faced a few hurdles, with the Delhi government penalising drivers for displaying such advertisements. The government’s decision was, however, stayed by the high court here.

Dilip Pandey, the AAP’s secretary for Delhi, said the campaign had started on a small scale. But after getting positive feedback, “we thought we should improvise. The experiment worked well for us”.

The party is also distributing cards to auto-rickshaw drivers, stating the list of steps the AAP will take if it is voted to power. These include building auto-rickshaw stands, protecting drivers from harassment by policemen and fixing meters on these vehicles.