AAP’s nationwide LS campaign from Feb 23

• Party’s anti-corruption 'Jhadu Chalao Yatra' begins
• AAP to contest polls under Kejriwal's leadership
• Kejriwal violated oath of CM's office: Shinde
• 'Thank God, nightmare is over', tweets Jaitley
• Move to introduce Jan Lokpal Bill erroneous: CPI(M)
• BJP will not form government in Delhi: Gadkari
• AAP failed as it went beyond Constitution: Sheila

New Delhi : A day after Arvind Kejriwal's resignation as Delhi Chief Minister, AAP announced that it will launch its campaign for Lok Sabha polls from February 23 with a rally at Rohtak in Haryana.

Speaking to reporters after the Political Affairs Committee (PAC) meeting, party leader Yogendra Yadav said, the the rally will be addressed by party's national convenor Arvind Kejriwal.

A day after Kejriwal stepped down as Delhi CM , AAP made it clear that it would contest the Lok Sabha polls under his leadership. After Haryana, the party will hold its second rally at Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh on March 2, he said. "Both these rallies would launch Aam Aadmi Party's national campaign," Yadav said.

The party also announced to kickstart its nation-wide anti-corruption campaign 'Jhadu Chalao Yatra' from Saturday.

"In 332 Lok Sabha seats of 24 states, around 2,500 Yatra starting from today will be organised in the next 10 days. We would expose Congress and BJP for defending corrupt persons during this campaign. Besides, party will also make new members in this campaign," party leader Gopal Rai said.

Of the 2,627 yatras in the campaign, the party will undertake a chunk of it around 461 in Uttar Pradesh, followed by 450 in Haryana and over 300 in Maharashtra, 270 in Bihar and 174 in Punjab. Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde sought to defend the joint opposition by Congress and BJP to introduction of Janlokpal Bill in Delhi Assembly and accused Kejriwal of violating his oath of the chief minister's office.

"Before assuming the office, an MLA or an MP takes the oath. Similarly, chief minister also takes the oath of (abiding by) the constitution before assuming the office. Kejriwal has however violated that oath," Shinde said.

Dubbing the Kejriwal government in Delhi as the "worst ever", BJP leader Arun Jaitley said its decision to step down over the issue Jan Lokpal was like a "nightmare" finally getting over.

"The nightmare is finally over. The worst ever state government that Delhi has ever witnessed has resigned.Thank God, the nightmare is over," Jaitley wrote on his website.

CPI(M) termed AAP government's move to introduce Jan Lokpal Bill in Delhi Assembly as "erroneous and inexpedient" and said this had provided BJP and Congress the opportunity to gang up against them, leading to the resignation of Kejriwal.

Senior BJP leader Nitin Gadkari said that the party doesn't have the numbers in the Delhi Assembly so it cannot form the government.

Former Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit said the AAP government failed because it started to go "beyond the constitution".

"Though AAP tried to tackle Delhi's problem, but I don't think they succeeded because they started going beyond the constitution... and that is when they really failed," said Ms Dikshit.