Today in Politics: Kejriwal to ramp up Punjab campaign in five-day blitz, Rahul gets set for Himachal push

With polling in Delhi coming to an end in the sixth phase of the Lok Sabha elections Saturday, Delhi Chief Minister and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) supremo Arvind Kejriwal is all set to hit the campaign trail in Punjab from Sunday for a five-day period.

Kejriwal will join his senior party colleague and Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann to campaign for the AAP candidates in the state from May 26 to May 30.

To begin with, Kejriwal will on Sunday morning attend a town hall meeting in Ferozepur followed by a rally in Hoshiarpur in the afternoon and a roadshow in Bathinda in the evening. On Monday morning, Kejriwal will participate in a town hall meeting in Amritsar.

“During his stay in Punjab, Kejriwal will visit all 13 Lok Sabha constituencies. He will leave on May 30, the last day of campaigning,” an AAP leader said, as Kanchan Vasdev and Raakhi Jagga reports.

The AAP has only a few star campaigners in Punjab. So, CM Mann has been crisscrossing the state to campaign for the party’s candidates.

Soon after being released from Tihar Jail on May 10 on an interim bail granted by the Supreme Court, Kejriwal visited Punjab for a day but remained mostly in Delhi so far. He had been in the prison for nearly 50 days in connection with the Delhi excise policy case.

All 13 seats of Punjab are going to polls in the seventh and last phase on June 1. The ruling AAP has been facing stiff challenges from the principal Opposition Congress, the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and the BJP in the state.

Significantly, the AAP and the Congress could not hammer out a seat-sharing arrangement in Punjab despite being members of the Opposition INDIA bloc and allies in Delhi, Haryana and Gujarat in the current polls.

With the BJP and the SAD also failing to revive their