Inside details of MP election campaign by Arvind Jha

Arvind Jha, who initially worked as Social Media Strategist for Aam Aadmi Party is now working as Campaign Coordinator for the upcoming assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh (MP). IIT Kharagpur graduate and senior of Arvind Kejriwal played a key role in fundraising for Aam Aadmi Party during 2015 Delhi assembly elections. During 2014 parliamentary elections, AAP lost on all seats except 4 from Punjab. AAP also flushed out its resources and bank accounts. After elections, Arvind Jha designed social media campaigns and built party image. He also organized Dine with AK campaign to fundraise for 2015 Delhi assembly elections. The event raised 1.2 crore in a single evening. Since then he is continuously working with AAP on various roles. During a AAP Ka Radio weekly conference call, Arvind Jha interacted with AAP supporters living in the US, Canada and other parts of the World and shared his experience from Madhya Pradesh. 

The Decision and Leadership of Alok Agarwal: AAP has decided to fight MP assembly elections on all seats under the leadership of Alok Agarwal. An activist from IIT Kanpur, Alok Agarwal is fighting for social causes and voicing for marginalized people of the country. His social activism started from IIT Kanpur while studying Chemical Engineering and it took some time for him to decide what he really wanted to do. After graduating he joined a social movement for fishermen in Orissa. He spent some time with tribals, lived with slum dwellers, went to Gandhi Ashram at Wardha and travelled across India for one year. Alok finally decided to join Narmada Bachao Andolan and worked for people who were affected by the failed promise of a developmental model. Leadership and organizational skills of Alok have helped Narmada Andolan from the past 25 years. More details about Alok and his struggle can be read here.  After a long journey full of challenges, Alok joined AAP in 2014 and now leading the front in Madhya Pradesh. 

Issues in MP: MP as a state is very less talked among people and media but its current situation is very shocking. When you don’t hear about MP, it appears to be doing alright but when you start digging more into it, the failure and state of corruption comes into picture. MP is ruled by BJP for the past 15 years. But believe me! 15 years is a long time for a state to achieve significant progress. After the Bhopal gas tragedy and Narmada Andolan, VYAPAM is another most talked about scam from MP. In the pursuit of cleaning VYAPAM’s past, already 50+ lives have been taken. Many people chargesheeted, enquiries were established, many were questioned but no development is observed as yet in this case. In Feb 2018, CBI chargesheeted 86 more people related to VYAPAM scam including present CM Shivraj Singh Chauhan but soon after CBI pulled 20 staff investigating VYAPAM scam due to some political development in Mar 2018. While media does not talk much about MP, from time to time we have seen pictures of poor condition of hospitals, patients being carried on shoulders, farmers dying etc. If you follow social media pages of MP Chief Minister, you will find him giving speeches and making promises even after ruling for 15th year in a row. Some of the major crisis issues that MP is still facing are: 

1. In a power surplus state, 43,00,000 households don’t have electricity 

2. >90% of government schools don’t have electricity 

3. MP supplies electricity to many states but it charges upto three times the power tariff compared to other states 

4. 40,000 Crores of agrarian loan is pending and on average 5 farmers are dying everyday 

5. 40 lakh families have to walk 1.5 kms on foot to collect water for daily needs 

Corruption is the only reason for the failure of policy implementation and developments in MP. Congress was in power and then in opposition for decades. However, it failed to provide meaningful opposition and corruption continues. RTI queries are rejected, public money is looted and people are exploited in every possible way. With a majority of rural population, education level is very low and people are not aware about their rights and value of their votes. In some places, people have to bribe 3-4 times a day just to go around their daily lives. With all the corruption activities and rampant looting, the state is ranked at the bottom three of any human development index scale. 

Setback and Organizational Development: After losing 2014 parliamentary elections from Khandwa, Alok learnt an important lesson about organization of a political party. After he organized the party structure in MP, people not only started to recognize AAP but they also began to consider AAP as a potential alternative in the politics of MP. Incompetency from ruling and opposition parties is also forcing people to think about options. In a survey conducted by a local newspaper, around 60% of people voted to change the present MP government. Delhi governance model has given people hope and people are discussing its health and education models. Many months are remaining for elections and AAP has managed to already change the dialogue among voters. 

The Election Machinery: Wide-spread rural areas of MP were challenging for AAP MP team and poor connectivity of internet (and internet enable devices) made the job even harder. With the help of hard-working volunteers and strategists from reputed universities in India, Alok and his team is working on developing the election machinery in MP. Limited resources available with them are used wisely and optimally using data analytics tools to connect with voters and communicate with them. Volunteers are reaching to voters and collecting data based on their needs and issues. 

Elections and Wins: Questions have been raised that AAP is dying out as it has stopped winning elections. Yes, AAP may not have been able to create the extraordinary experience of Delhi but it is changing the conversation among voters. AAP organization is gaining better shape across India. It takes time to convince people to vote especially for a new political party. AAP tried various election models from fighting on all seats to selected number of seats. 2014 parliamentary elections resulted in 4 successful MPs and in 2017 Punjab assembly elections AAP formed the opposition. AAP failed badly in the 2018 Gujarat and Karnataka assembly elections mainly because people were not convinced about the seriousness of AAP. Majority of voters who don’t understand the value of their votes go by popular opinion created in favor of a particular party or candidate. They don’t want to waste their vote by casting it to a losing candidate. While educating voters about value of their votes, AAP is fighting on all seats of MP. Under the right leadership of Alok, confidence of people is increasing in AAP. 

The Blueprint: Accomplishments of Delhi are being considered as a good solution in other states where AAP is contesting. In Delhi, corruption complaints are reduced by 81% which itself is a significant achievement by any government. The moment corruption is fixed, saving begins and investments in different projects start pouring in. Madhya Pradesh’s total budget is around 3 lakh crores and ~30% of this budget is looted, i.e. 60,000-80,000 crores are not being used for public projects. Now imagine the development this huge sum would have been able to make. A team consisting of few friends of Alok from IIT/IIM, experts in developmental policies and NGOs are creating a blueprint to tackle all major problems in MP. These problems are related to electricity, agriculture, water, tourism, roads, transportation etc. The blueprint will help to fix the economy of MP which has 70,000 crore of budget surplus. The draft blueprint is expected to be released soon and it will represent AAP’s agenda for the upcoming MP assembly elections; solid fact and need based agenda. 

Candidate Selection: Candidate selection procedure is based on saying NO to 3Cs: Criminal, Corruption and Communal (activities). Around a month ago, an online portal was launched by AAP where anyone could download and submit their application for MLA candidacy. AAP is here to change the system, not to fight elections based on caste and religion. So far around 1100 people have downloaded the application form available on AAP MP website. It is expected to see the final list consisting of highly professional and socially trained committed candidates.

Watch full video of Arvind Jha

AAP USA chapter organizes a weekly conference call every Sunday at noon 12:00PM EST. More details about the call and the guest can be found at @aapchat (https://twitter.com/aapchat).