Delhi Poll campaign ends: Kiran Bedi covers 100 km, Arvind Kejriwal the street ... - The Indian Express

You, not I, will take oath of office on February 15... step out and vote, call your friends and spread the word — Arvind kejriwal, Lodhi Road govt quarters, New Delhi constituency.(Source: Express photo by Praveen Khanna)

In the final hours of campaigning for the most bitterly contested elections in Delhi, AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal slipped in a line he hadn’t used all day in his appeal for votes. “You, not I, will take oath of office on February 15,” he told people at street-corner meetings while on a whistle-stop tour of his constituency New Delhi on Thursday.

“Just do two things to help me: step out and vote for AAP on February 7, and call all your friends and relatives to spread the word across Delhi. We just need that one extra push,” Kejriwal said as he scaled walls, mounted stairs, and stood atop platforms to make last-minute appeals.

I am here as your mother. I believe in hard work and tough decisions. I want to take everybody along — Kiran Bedi, Krishna Nagar constituency. (Source: Express photo by Amit Mehra)

Mothers pushed babies in his arms and posed for pictures, old men slapped him on the back while boys, wearing sweatshirts embossed with The Curious Case of Muffler Man: Dilli ka Rakhwala, danced to Vishal Dadlani’s Paanch-saal-Kejriwal. For them, he was home — almost, already.

And he, on his part, kept telling them a story: “Do you remember Mahabharat? Before the war, Duryodhan and Arjun went to Krishna who asked them to make a wish. Give me the entire army, Duryodhan told Krishna. And what did Arjun say? I want you… Hamein to AAP chahiye ji.”

Elsewhere in the city, BJP rival and main challenger Kiran Bedi, betraying no signs of worry over pre-poll surveys projecting an AAP lead over her party, set herself a punishing last-day schedule. In a road show that crisscrossed north-west Delhi to cover nearly 100 km, most left untouched in the last two weeks of campaigning, Bedi called out as “a mother to all of you”.

“I love little children, and all of you are so affectionate. I have not come here for any selfish interest. I am here as your mother,” she told supporters in Mangolpuri.

Turning to reporters, she rubbished talk of being a “dictator”. “I have always believed in hard work and tough decisions. People can label decision-makers as they choose. I want to take everybody along and work for my vision of Delhi.”

Mangolpuri to Sultanpur Majra to Kirari, her cavalcade stopped for a few minutes at regular intervals. Winding up the campaign, she spent three hours on the roads of her constituency Krishna Nagar in east Delhi. Standing atop the bonnet of her jeep, she blew kisses at the crowd. She also held continued…