Eye on LS polls, AAP will launch campaign for full statehood
NEWDELHI: The Aam Aadmi Party has begun mobilising its leader and volunteers for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, with the party’s first meeting to chalk out a strategy scheduled to be held on Sunday. The meeting, to be chaired by chief minister and AAP convener Arvind Kejriwal at his residence, will see the presence of ward-level office-bearers and legislators.
Party leaders said Sunday’s meeting will discuss AAP’S strategy for the general assembly polls and also the issue of full statehood. Last week, the party had appointed five Lok Sabha in-charges (prabharis) for five parliamentary constituencies of Delhi. The post of party in-charge for two constituencies have also been kept vacant giving rise to speculation of a possible alliance in the future.
The party is also planning to pull out all stops to launch a campaign demanding full statehood for Delhi as a prelude to their election campaign. On Monday, Kejriwal is likely to give a speech in the Delhi Assembly in support of a resolution moved by deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia over full statehood. Sources said Kejriwal is likely to launch the campaign in the House.
AAP’S Delhi unit convener, Gopal Rai, said that over the next few days, the party “will expose the political opportunism” of both the BJP and the Congress on the issue of full statehood for Delhi. He said the ongoing assembly session has “exposed the sudden U-turn” on statehood by the BJP and the Congress.
“BJP has made every attempt during the ongoing session to avoid discussion on the statehood,” he said at a press conference. “It is beyond any reasonable understanding as to how decades-old promise made by stalwarts — from former PM Atal Behari Vajpayee and former deputy PM LK Advani — has been suddenly junked by the BJP,” Rai said .
Rai also posed five questions each for the BJP and the Congress on the issue. “Was the promise of PM Modi in 2013 and 2014 of providing full statehood to Delhi fake? Did the BJP lie in its manifesto and will it apologise to the public of Delhi for lying?” read some questions to the BJP.
Blaming the Congress, Rai said, “In 2015, when Ajay Maken was the chairman of the Congress campaign committee, their manifesto promised statehood for Delhi. Was he lying then or is he lying now? Why did former Sheila Dikshit send the proposed idea of statehood to the Central government?”