AAP bid to forge alliance with RLP in Rajasthan

NEW DELHI: All major political parties have started preparations for upcoming Assembly elections in Rajasthan. Before the 2024 general elections, Assembly elections in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh are litmus tests for political parties.
Amid this, a video has surfaced on social media and has created a buzz in the political aisle of Rajasthan politics. In the video, AAP supremo and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and his Punjab counterpart Bhagwant Mann could be seen meeting Rashtriya Loktantrik Party president and MP from Nagaur Hanuman Beniwal.
The video was shot when the RLP chief welcomed both AAP leaders at her daughter’s birthday party in the national capital. In the video, Congress MP from Ludhiana, Punjab, could also be seen welcoming AAP leaders. Hanuman Beniwal is seen as a tall Jat leader from Rajasthan, whose party has three MLAs in the Rajasthan Assembly. According to sources inside AAP, the party is trying to forge an alliance with RLP for the upcoming Assembly elections, which are scheduled to take place in the last months of 2023.
“The party’s senior leadership is in talks with Beniwal, but it is in initial stages,” an AAP leader told The Sunday Guardian. In 2019, the RLP forged an alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party before the general election. It contested on the Nagaur seat and extended its support to the BJP on all other seats in the state. But in 2020, RLP broke with the saffron party due to contention on farm bills.
According to political analysts based in Rajasthan, election in the state is looked at as a bi-polar competition between Congress and BJP and newcomer AAP is trying to make its place in the politics of the state.
Alliance with RLP will help both political parties. “This will increase our reach to the Jat vote bank,” the AAP leader said. According to political analysts, RLP will get the support of a national party and could benefit from the popularity of AAP. There are also talks that All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) is also trying to forge an alliance with RLP.
The RLP has a good presence in western Rajasthan, in Nagaur, Jodhpur and Barmer are seen as RLP’s base. “Roping in Hanuman Beniwal will help AAP in getting a star campaigner and will also add Jatt votes into the fold of AAP,” Lokesh Somani a political analyst from Rajasthan said.
In the last 2018 Assembly elections, AAP fielded 142 candidates out of a total of 200 Assembly seats in the state. But the party was not able to fetch a single seat. AAP’s total vote share was 0.38%, with 1,36,345 votes polled. Now, the party has announced it will fight elections on all 200 seats.