By Vishwas Waghmode
Gearing up for the coming Lok sabha elections, the Maharashtra unit of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has moved into top gear, hoping to widen its support base by bringing in rebel Mumbai Congress leader Ajit Sawant and also roping in the Shetkari Sanghatana led by Sharad Joshi, a well-established organisation agitating on various farmers' issues for the last 35 years. The strategy appears clear -- woo known faces and public figures, cast the net wide in Mumbai and also in rural areas of the state. Maharashtra is a key state for the Aam Aadmi Party, not only because this is the birthplace of the India Against Corruption movement to which most senior AAP members of Maharashtra belong, but also because IAC and AAP members have built a large support base here.
Damania with Kejriwal. Image courtesy Facebook.
Anjali Damania, convener of the Maharashtra unit of AAP, talks about the party's strategy for Lok Sabha elections.
Rebel Congress leader Ajit Sawant has joined AAP. Is the party open to all Congressmen?
The party membership is open to all including political leaders from the other parties. Leaders from all political parties in the state are finding AAP a good platform and are joining it. As for rebel Ccongress leader Ajit Sawant, I don't know him personally but what I know that he is a good and non-corrupt person. He has fought against corruption within his own party and has taken on senior Congress leader Kripashankar Singh. Sawant has also exposed BJP leader Nitin Gadkari's alleged links with the Purti group. Since he is fighting corruption like us, he is welcome in the party.
What if he is a Congress decoy like some are saying about Vinod Kumar Binny in Delhi?
We can not compare Sawant and Binny. Both are totally different. AAP is such an organization that we don't have a cadre system like other conventional parties. So, joining AAP is like becoming a member only.
Is this a sign that the Congress is your chief rival? What is your strategy to counter your rival?
The 128 year old party has been downsized to just eight seats out of 70 Assembly seats in Delhi despite being in power for the last 15 years. The Delhi elections clearly showed that the Congress party has become insignificant. So, in fact, we no longer feel the Congress is our main rival. We feel the BJP is now the main rival for us.
Our strategy is to give the best candidates against the heavyweights like we did in Delhi by fielding Arvind Kejriwal against the former chief minster Sheila Dikshit and like our plan to field AAP leader Kumar Vishwas against Rahul Gandhi in Amethi. A similar strategy will be followed in the state. Soon, I am going to undertake a tour of Baramati to address a rally there and then to Madha (which is the constituency of union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar). Since it is not clear who is contesting from these constituencies (since Pawar has dceided to take the Rajya Sabha route to Parliament), we have not decided on our candidates.
On the one hand you are saying the BJP is AAP's main rival and on the other hand AAP leader Praful Vora extended support to a BJP corporator from Andheri (West) Ameet Satam recently, when the latter went on hunger strike for a week on the issue of poor illumination in the area.
I really don't know about this and won't be able to comment on it.
Interestingly, if we protest on the common man's issues, then we are called 'anarchist'. But, if a BJP corporator and a Congress MP sits on a hunger strike or carries out a morcha, then the same is not applied to them despite the fact that BJP is in power in the civic body and the Congress in the state government.
Please tell about the Lok Sabha strategy being worked out by AAP in Maharashtra.
We are yet to decide on whether to contest all 48 Lok sabha seats in the state. But, if we get the best candidates, then we will contest all the seats. We have received lot of applications from candidates who wish to contest Lok Sabha elections. The process of scrutinizing the applications and interview process is going on. We will be able to release the first list of candidates for the Lok Sabha elections in the next week.
In the past you have targetted NCP leaders including Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar and Irrigation Minister Sunil Tatkare. Will you continue doing that?
We will continue to expose political heavyweights in the state including Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar and his other ministers, BJP leader Nitin Gadkari and leaders from other political parties. We have gathered so much information on Gadkari's business dealings that we can make one expose every week. We are also gathering information about other political leaders and plan to divulge it during the election campaign.
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