Mumbai: Booster shot for AAP, rebel Congressman joins party

By Vishwas Waghmode

Mumbai: The Mumbai unit of the Congress party was dealt a small but significant blow on Wednesday with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) roping in former Mumbai Regional Congress Committee general secretary Ajit Sawant. The Mumbai arm of the AAP, widely believed to be the strongest after the Delhi team, is expected to make a dramatic debut in the Lok Sabha election.

Sawant will join the AAP in Mumbai on Thursday. His entry into the AAP is especially significant as the former Mumbai Congress spokesperson is believed to be partly responsible for the Congress's poor performance in the February 2012 elections to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation. He has also claimed that hundreds of Congressmen will follow him into the Aam Aadmi Party.

Congress in jeopardy. AFP

Sawant rebelled against the party after a candidate he was backing was refused a ticket. He then went on to support several other Congress rebels who contested against official party candidates, critically splitting the Congress vote share in about a dozen seats. He was eventually suspended from the party following his criticism of the ticket distribution system and election strategy of the party.

Despite a pre-poll alliance with NCP, the Congress could win only 52 seats in the civic body out of 227. It had contested the civic elections alone (without a prepoll tie-up) and had won 70 seats in 2007.

The BMC election was a critical one for the Mumbai Congress. Not only is the BMC the country's richest municipality with an annual budget outlay of Rs 28,000 crore this year but it also considered one of the most politically powerful civic bodies where senior politicians have cut their teeth including former Union minister Murli Deora, former Lok Sabha Speaker Manohar Joshi, Maharashtra Minister Chhagan Bhujbal and NCW member Nirmala Samant Prabhavalkar, all former Mumbai mayors.

"Though the Congress party has given the freedom to the country, it has failed in keeping the communal forces out of power, which is posing a danger for the country. Now, the AAP is emerging as the common man's party and will pose a big challenge to the Congress party in the upcoming elections," Sawant told Firstpost about his decision to join AAP.

"AAP is raising issues faced by the common man, which has led me to join the party. It is a good platform to raise and address the common man's issues," explained Sawant, charging that the Shiv Sena-BJP ruling combine and the opposition parties such as congress, NCP and MNS in BMC are hand in glove with each other and are unconcerned about the problems faced by Mumbaikars.

Sawant claimed that hundreds of Congress party workers would join AAP in the coming days. "I know the problems being faced by Congress party workers and will try to address these. And this will result in Congressmen joining AAP in huge numbers," claimed Sawant.