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KOLKATA: AAP has reactivated its national ambitions after its sweeping victory in the Punjab assembly elections, planning now to foray into states where the party has not been on a steady footing or yet to find a toehold. For a start, AAP will contest the panchayat polls in Bengal scheduled next year, a move that will put Arvind Keriwal’s party directly in the path of Mamata Banerjee‘s Trinamool Congress.
Both parties aspire to expand their national footprint and they contested the Goa polls separately at a time when Banerjee was calling on opposition parties to band together to fight BJP. Like Banerjee, Telangana CM K Chandrashekar Rao is another votary of opposition unity. But AAP is targeting Telangana as a stepping stone to enter the southern states and the party’s Delhi MLA Somnath Bharti has even called KCR names -‘Chota Modi’.
As part of its Bengal plan, AAP tried to bring the party into focus that seldom got the people’s attention in the state, though it entered this turf as early as 2014. On Sunday, AAP’s Bengal unit took out a rally in Kolkata, its first in several years. AAP supporters carried posters and brooms and thanked the people for the crushing mandate in Punjab.
On Monday, AAP’s women’s wing will hold a press conference to highlight the condition of women in Bengal, as opposed to Delhi where the party is in office.
“Our Bengal plan was decided in February 2020 and we started expanding our network in the state. We set up bases in 16 districts across Bengal,” said Sanjay Basu, AAP’s observer for the state.
He said AAP did not contest the 2021 assembly polls in Bengal as the party’s focus was on Punjab and three other states. “We waited for our organisation to grow strong here. We will now contest in the panchayat polls where we have strength,” Basu said.
Both parties aspire to expand their national footprint and they contested the Goa polls separately at a time when Banerjee was calling on opposition parties to band together to fight BJP. Like Banerjee, Telangana CM K Chandrashekar Rao is another votary of opposition unity. But AAP is targeting Telangana as a stepping stone to enter the southern states and the party’s Delhi MLA Somnath Bharti has even called KCR names -‘Chota Modi’.
As part of its Bengal plan, AAP tried to bring the party into focus that seldom got the people’s attention in the state, though it entered this turf as early as 2014. On Sunday, AAP’s Bengal unit took out a rally in Kolkata, its first in several years. AAP supporters carried posters and brooms and thanked the people for the crushing mandate in Punjab.
On Monday, AAP’s women’s wing will hold a press conference to highlight the condition of women in Bengal, as opposed to Delhi where the party is in office.
“Our Bengal plan was decided in February 2020 and we started expanding our network in the state. We set up bases in 16 districts across Bengal,” said Sanjay Basu, AAP’s observer for the state.
He said AAP did not contest the 2021 assembly polls in Bengal as the party’s focus was on Punjab and three other states. “We waited for our organisation to grow strong here. We will now contest in the panchayat polls where we have strength,” Basu said.
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