Aam Aadmi Party convener and chief and former Delhi chief minister Arvind Kerjiwal has written an open letter where he has apologised for quitting the state government last year.

He's said it many times before, but just a week before Delhi goes to the polls, AAP convenor Arvind Kejriwal in an open letter to the citizens of the national capital has apologised again for quitting as Chief Minister and while promising to make the city a world-class one, he has promised not to quit again if elected to the post again.

In the letter published on NDTV, the former Delhi chief minister acknowledged that those who had voted for the party in the 2013 poll had to face embarrassment when he resigned after just 49 days and said that "many people across Delhi feel that our actions have let them down".

Soon after stepping down from the CM's post, Kejriwal declared that he would contest against PM Modi from Varanasi, an election he lost. However, the AAP convenor denied that he had resigned purely to contest the Lok Sabha polls.

Kejriwal said that he had resigned hoping for fresh elections to be held immediately, in the hope of getting a complete majority, but admitted it was a mistake to believe that polls would be held soon after they resigned. The Delhi Assembly was kept in suspended animation by Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung for over a year after AAP resigned, and the recommendation of the AAP government to hold polls was rejected.

"In hindsight, perhaps we were too trusting. It was a mistake, an honest mistake; but a mistake all the same," Kejriwal said in his letter.

The former Delhi chief minister, whose party released its manifesto yesterday, has promised his party will ensure that Delhi's citizen can do "business without hafta" if voted to power and to set "new standards in business growth, healthcare, education, and women's safety."

Kejriwal also said that a corruption-free, stable, government is an "ideal that will never lose steam," even if there is no AAP or he didn't come to power and interestingly also said that the party understood the need to work "constructively with the central government".

Kejriwal ended his letter with what he's hoping will satisfy every prospective AAP supporter. "I can promise you the following: I will not quit. Period," he wrote.

For Kejriwal, this assurance is perhaps the most important one that he needs to give to the Delhi voters. The BJP has made Kejriwal's quitting act as the focus of its campaign, and in both television and print advertising in and around Delhi. For instance, this particular ad shows a maid servant saying that she won't be giving the vote to 'those people' again (read AAP) and points out that while AAP promised free water and electricity only the rich got these benefits while the poor in slums were left out. Many BJP posters also talk about the previous 'bhagoda sarkar' of AAP and urge people to vote for Modi and BJP.

Interestingly while BJP has projected Bedi has the face of the Delhi CM, the posters and hoardings of the parties are still focused on the Prime Minister and his promise of development. And this, despite evidence that the wave of support that was witnessed for Modi in 2014 isn't visible yet in the latest opinion polls.

As Firstpost editor-in-chief R Jagannathan had noted in this piece the latest ABP News-Nielsen opinion poll showed a 50-41 split favouring Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) against the BJP, a sharp rise from a fortnight ago when the BJP was a nose ahead.

He had noted that "if this poll has got it right, AAP is not only going to get a majority, but a landslide win. A rising near 10 percentage points difference in a largely two-horse race is unlikely to be reversed in the course of a week." Another HT-Cfore survey showed AAP and BJP tied with 38 percent of the vote share each.

More importantly in both the opinion polls, AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal has stood out to be the city’s favourite among all chief minister candidates. In the ABP-Nielsen opinion poll, 39 percent of Delhi’s electorate wanted AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal as the next chief minister, highest amongst his competitors. Similarly, the C Fore Survey also revealed that 43 percent of Delhiites want Kejriwal as their next CM, while 39 percent want Bedi and 12 percent want the Congress candidate Ajay Maken.

With his latest letter, Kejriwal has tried to tackle the most prominent allegations made over his resignation. Given he's still leading in the race as the people's preferred CM candidate, even as the BJP battles in-fighting over Bedi's arrival, the AAP chief will be hoping to win back every supporter from the 2013 poll and every disgruntled Congress voter to pip the BJP on 7 February.