Lucknow: Riding high on its victory in Delhi Assembly elections, Aam Aadmi Party is gearing up to spread its wings in the politically important state of Uttar Pradesh where it hopes to replace caste politics with issue-based politics. “Though we haven’t taken a decision yet on contesting the 2017 Assembly elections, our main focus is on UP,” AAP’s national council member and state spokesman Vaibhav Maheshwari told PTI.
People feel that caste politics dominates in UP but AAP foresees more possibilities in the state, he said. “The reason being that the electorate changes the government after every election,” Maheshwari said. He exuded confidence that when AAP will go before the electorate with issue-based politics, they will respond positively. “We are confident of providing them with alternate politics, which will focus only on their issues regardless of their caste and religion,” he said.
On the expansion of the party, he said AAP currently has committees in 72 districts. “These districts have been divided in five zones supervised by a state secretariat. This secretariat coordinates among these committees,” he said. “We have to bring the organisation in a strong position in these 72 districts. Membership and people’s attraction towards the party has increased. There was some negativity after Lok Sabha elections,” he said.
Maheshwari said due to Delhi elections, they could not give much attention to the organisational preparations in UP. “Though officially we are yet to decide whether we will contest UP Assembly election, but if we are in the fray then our prime focus is on organisational preparations,” he said.
“The expansion plan in UP will be decided in a meeting to be held immediately after Holi. This will be decided in UP executive meeting to be held in Delhi,” Maheshwari said. He said the meeting would be attended by Sanjay Singh, Manish Sisodia and Kumar Vishwas, who are all from UP. “UP and Punjab will be our prime focus. We consider UP to be the most contributing and probable state from where change could be started,” he said.
In the Delhi Assembly polls, the AAP crushed the BJP and the Congress, bagging 67 of the 70 Assembly seats. BJP won just three seats and Congress which ruled Delhi for 15 years was wiped out. The party had received a drubbing in the Lok Sabha elections.
