Express News Service
JAIPUR: The Punjab triumph has given impetus to the Aam Aadmi Party’s ‘mission expansion’. While the Arvind Kejriwal-led party’s immediate priority is Gujarat, where elections are due later this year, it also has eyes set on Rajasthan, which will go to polls in 2023.
With nearly 18 months in its hands to expand the party organisation in the state, the AAP held a one-day workers’ conference in capital Jaipur, where hundreds of people joined the party. While that was the beginning of the attempt to create a mass base, the AAP has also given an open invitation to disgruntled leaders in the BJP, Congress and the BSP to come and join Kejriwal-led party.
The AAP has no well-known face as a leader in Rajasthan and is hoping to attract some big names as it began its preparations for the polls. The party has also decided to reconstitute its Rajasthan unit with fresh and energetic young faces over the next few months.
Announcing that all “good people” were welcomed into the AAP fold, the party’s Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh said at the conference, “We don’t have to stop or get tired now… After Punjab, now our next stop is Rajasthan.”
Talking to the media earlier, he claimed that many state leaders of the Congress and the BJP were in touch with AAP. “We have taken care even in the states where assembly polls were held recently that there is no compromise on the image, that the new faces do not carry any baggage. This will be taken care of in Rajasthan, too,” Singh said.
Vinay Mishra, MLA from Dwarka in Delhi, has been made election in-charge of Rajasthan. The blueprint is being made to prepare the party for the elections. The AAP’s focus will be first on those areas where people are angry with both the Congress and the BJP. Mishra said the two parties – Congress and BJP – had a pact to loot the state alternately. “In the next six months, you will see a change in the work of the party,” he said.
