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Delhi

We will be campaigning on development work that AAP has done in 5 years: Gopal Rai

Minister for Employment, Development, and Labour in Government of Delhi and senior leader of the Aam Aadmi Party, Gopal Rai, in an exclusive interview with Aaisha Sabir of Millennium Post, said that the upcoming Assembly elections in the city will be fought based on work done and the promises of new scheme for the labourers that the AAP will launch if they win again. Excerpts:

What will be your strategy for the upcoming Assembly polls?

The campaign is now in its last phase. It is divided into three tiers – roadshow led by Arvind Kejriwal, star campaigners and their padayatra, indoor meetings, and nukkad meetings. On the third level, Arvind Kejriwal's guarantee card will be taken to the people through the door-to-door campaign which we have already begun and is being conducted by volunteers, candidates and also the leaders. All three processes are in full swing.

The 15 candidates that the party has changed, on what basis were these changes made?

There were three criteria like, what was their performance in the last five years, what is their image amongst the people, what sort of local connectivity do they have among the public. Beginning of January when we started 'Jansamwad' till the first phase of the campaign, which is a door-to-door activity we observed that how strong a hold they have in their respective constituency. Based on the feedback and also based on these criteria, we made the changes in the candidate list.

What will be your strategy in Babarpur?

In Babarpur, we will be campaigning based on the development work that AAP has done in the last five years. For years the BJP dominated Barbarpur with its Hindu-Muslim division and conflicts. Due to this the development work came to a standstill. This constituency was left far behind in terms of growth and development. Five years ago when I won from this seat AAP had to work in this area from scratch. Due to our efforts a lot of changes have come about and now if this election is based on work then there will be more growth in the future.

Between the 2015 election and the upcoming state elections what major differences you can see?

The 2015 election was fought on promises, this time it is based on reality and work. Last time when we promised people trusted us but there was a hint of doubt because we were making promises but now we have work to show and people can trust us because we had promised and have delivered too.

Since you spoke of promises, this time what promises are you making to the people?

In Babarpur constituency we started working on basic facilities for the people like better connectivity with proper roads, water pipelines, sewer lines. In this constituency, there are two big nalas (drain number one and 52). Cleaning up of the nala which was heavily polluted was taken up. We then focused on mohalla clinics and roads. Roughly 700 roads and lanes were constructed. We installed new pipelines and changed old ones.16 mohalla clinics are functioning presently and people are availing the facility there. Over 2,000 CCTV cameras have been installed. So far our focus was on basic facilities and our future focus will be on making a 100-bedded hospital and a mini stadium and a huge auditorium so that community programmes can be held there. We plan to build bigger and more schools. Also, the constituency is filled with narrow lanes which do not allow the construction of poles for street lights but we are planning on getting rid of dark spots in some other way. In the next five years, there will not be a single lane that will not be lit up.

As the Labour Minister, what special scheme will you launch if you win again?

The increasing of the minimum wage, which we managed to do after a lot of struggle, has helped the labourers a lot. Earlier it was around Rs 8,000 and now it is around Rs15,000. This is a big achievement for us. In future I would like to work in the unorganised sector, wherein different groups of people work under different profiles. We will bring in a welfare scheme for them. Along with this,

we will bring a scheme for the domestic workers especially those who work in people's houses and come to Delhi as household help which consequently will help them to improve their life.

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