Ahmedabad: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and his Punjab counterpart Bhagwant Mann on Saturday visited the Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad as part of their two-day visit to the city. Both the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leaders arrived in the city on Friday night. Their visit to the BJP-ruled Gujarat is being seen as an attempt to prepare the groundwork for their party ahead of the state Assembly elections scheduled to be held by the end of this year.
Kejriwal and Mann took a tour of Hriday Kunj, the place where Mahatma Gandhi used to stay in the Sabarmati Ashram premises, and also visited museums there and bowed down before the statue of Gandhiji. They also wrote their opinion in the visitors' book at the ashram, where its authorities presented them with miniature charkha and books on Mahatma Gandhi's life.
Talking to reporters there, Kejriwal said, "This is my first visit to Sabarmati Ashram after becoming Delhi chief minister. Earlier, when I was an activist, I had visited this place several times." "Whenever I come here, I get inner peace," he said. Kejriwal and Mann are scheduled to hold a two-km roadshow in eastern areas of the city this evening, local office-bearers of the AAP have said.
"I come from the land of freedom fighters. The people of Gujarat are revolutionaries. I believe the people in Gujarat are ready to play a great role in the country's prosperity and security," said Mann. Kejriwal will be holding meetings with party leaders of the Gujarat unit on Sunday. Charged with its landslide victory in the recently held Punjab Assembly elections, AAP is seeking to expand its footprint in other states.
AAP plans to contest all 182 assembly seats in Gujarat, Kejriwal had said last year. The party had made its debut in Gujarat in the 2017 assembly polls, but could not open its account. In the local bodies elections held last year in March AAP had won 42 seats.
Also read: Gujarat: BJP, AAP and Congress to make political moves in April
