Party yet to put stamp on proposed candidates; names to be announced after Jan 15.
New Delhi: The Aam Aadmi Party has reportedly short-listed names of about 100 candidates for the coming Lok Sabha elections. Though the party leadership is yet to put its stamp on the proposed candidates, sources said the names would be officially announced after January 15.
After its spectacular debut in Delhi, the party is now set to conduct a national membership drive called “Main Bhi Aam aadmi” (I am a common man too) from January 10 to 26.
AAP leader Yogendra Yadav announced on Sunday that the party has decided to lose its Rs 10 enrollment fee for the special drive.
Sources said that the enrollment drive was being carried across the country to see the response of the people. “The final decision on fielding candidates from different states would be taken on the basis of this drive only.”
While ruling out that the party was in a position to contest all the 543 seats, Mr Yadav said the AAP would be fielding candidates from maximum number of seats. He said the feed-back from the party’s two-day national executive clearly suggested that people were keen to see the AAP contesting from a majority of Lok Sabha seats.
Mr Yadav said candidates would be first screened by the state committees and the final decision would be taken by the nine-member political affairs committee, selected by the party’s national executive. He said the party manifesto would be released by March.
Asked how the party was going to collect donations for contesting the elections, Mr Yadav said state wise committees would be set up to collect funds.
“We contested Delhi assembly elections by spending Rs20 crore. Now, we need more funds.” He, however, made it clear that the AAP had never ever got foreign donations.
On whether the party would release only national manifesto, Mr Yadav said, “we would ask the candidates to prepare constituency-wise manifestos” as well. He announced that the party would be contesting all the Lok Sabha seats in Delhi and neighbouring Haryana.
He said that the assembly elections which were due in Haryana in October could be pre-poned. “We are going to contest all the 90 assembly seats in Haryana as well.”
Mr Yadav said the APP would also contest in Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and many other states. On AAP founder Arvind Kejriwal’s decision not to contest the general elections, Mr Yadav said the party would contest under the leadership of the Delhi chief minister. “This is Mr Kejriwal’s personal decision. The final decision would be taken only by the party.”
Mr Yadav said the party would declare its prime ministerial candidate at an appropriate time. “We have always said that contest between Congress scion Rahul Gandhi and BJP’s Narender Modi for the prime ministerial post was not a good signal. We should have a better alternative.”
Asked whether the party has selected any candidate for the Lok Sabha, Mr Yadav said there are discussions going on. “The final decision would be taken by the PAC only.”
Sources said that the party had already short-listed 100 candidates. AAP leader Kumar Vishwas is all set to contest against Rahul Gandhi from Amethi. Senior AAP leader Sanjay Sigh in all probability was going to contest from Sultanpur seat in Uttar Pradesh.
The party has also short-listed Mayank Gandhi for Maharashtra. Mr Sanjay Singh had told this newspaper that the party was likely to contest more than 300 seats.
Of late, giving the AAP a boost are not so aam aadmis. Top banker Meera Sanyal,
Captain Gopinath who created Air Deccan, Infosys board member V Balakrishnan and singer Remo Fernandez have already joined the AAP movement.
( Source : dc )
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