A group of Team Anna activists, who participated in the anti-corruption movement with Arvind Kejriwal in 2011, have formed their own political party, called the Naya Daur Party. They have decided to field candidates in the Punjab Assembly elections against Kejriwal’s Aam Admi Party (AAP).
Founder and national president of the party Sanjeev Chibbar, who was once a close aide of Arvind Kejriwal, alleged that the Delhi Chief Minister is acting like “Napolean”. Chibbar told said that “Kejriwal has changed. I have known him since a long time. We were together for Anna Hazare’s movement, but now he has become a self-centered man. He is hungry for power and doesn’t have any vision or ideology. He has lost the plot of governance. He always looks for political opportunism. He could even embrace a corrupt man for the sake of political opportunism, like we saw in Bihar”.
The party which has decided to contest the Punjab elections in all the 117 seats will begin its full fledged campaign in the state from February. The party had already been protesting against the drug menace in Punjab at the Jantar Mantar. Chibbar said, “We are fully prepared to take on the AAP in Punjab. They are full of people who make tall promises. Punjab is reeling under crisis and we have a clear vision to revive the state to its previous glory.”
“Our main focus would be to curb the menace of drugs in the state. We would also be focusing on development of the state by promotion of agriculture and industries,” he added.
Chibbar alleged that the Anna Hazare movement was politically motivated. He said, “The entire movement was political. It was also personality driven, where Anna wanted to become the new age Mahatama Gandhi and Kejriwal was projected as the new age Jawaharlal Nehru. The movement was actually a preparation for launching a political party. Both Anna and Kejriwal belong to the same family. They had all assembled with some political backing and agenda. This is sad but true. I thus left them mid way to form my own party.”
The Naya Daur Party claims it is a party of only professionals, like doctors, lawyers, teachers amongst others and has a over three lakh members. The party claims to have won a Panchayat election seat from a village in Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh. “We are strengthening our units across the country. We will also be fight the UP elections and the Delhi MCD election due next year,” Chibbar added.
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