Ex-MP Tanwar floats Apna Bharat Morcha
CHANDIGARH: Fifteen months after he quit the Congress citing serious internal contradictions and existential crisis in the party, former MP Ashok Tanwar on Thursday launched Apna Bharat Morcha, a sociopolitical platform.
“I am presenting this platform as an alternative to Congress and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). There is a lot of frustration among Congress and BJP workers. Many want to leave these parties provided there is a better alternative,” he said.
Having remained in political wilderness for all these months, Tanwar said that the Morcha will be an agent of positive changes and a platform to give voice to the voiceless.
“Our focus will be on overall and inclusive development of the country. Our slogan is ‘Nai Soch, Nai Disha, Aur Nai Rajneeti.’ (New Thinking, New
Direction and New Politics!),” he said in New Delhi after the formal launch.
When asked that past experience show that regional political outfits have a poor success rate, Tanwar said when people are with you, there is nothing challenging. “Ours is a socio-political platform of the people and for the people,” he said.
Most regional outfits such as Bansi Lal’s Haryana Vikas Party (HVP), Bhajan Lal’s Haryana Janhit Congress (HJC), Gopal Kanda’s Haryana Lokhit Party (HLP) and Venod Sharma’s Haryana
Jan Chetna Party (HJCP) have limited to no success at all in electoral politics of Haryana.
While HVP had managed to form government with the BJP’s support in 1996, it had collapsed in 1999 and later merged into Congress in 2005. HJC also came a cropper and merged into Congress. Kanda and Sharma’s outfits are virtually non-starters.
The only credible exception is Om Prakash Chautala’s Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) and its offshoot, the fledgling Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) which can claim to have tasted some success.
Tanwar, a former state Congress chief, was sent packing after the 2019 Lok Sabha debacle where all 10 Lok Sabha seats in Haryana were won by the BJP.
He had later held a protest outside the Delhi residence of Congress chief Sonia Gandhi against distribution of party tickets for the Haryana assembly polls.