‘However, the party has taken up membership drives across the state’.
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)’s expansion plans are well known and the recognition as a national party by the Election Commission of India (ECI) recently has given a boost to the party. The Arvind Kejriwal-led party contesting the recently-held Assembly elections in Karnataka was part of the same plan. It is a different matter that the party failed to make a mark.
After victory in Punjab Assembly elections last year, the party had made it clear that it was eying southern states with plans to launch a massive membership drives in Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala. In these southern states, Telangana is scheduled to go to polls in December this year. But the party has not decided yet whether it will contest the elections or not. Speaking to The Sunday Guardian, Telangana Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) spokesperson Advocate Mahmood Ali said the Telangana unit of the party has not received any direction from the central leadership on contesting elections.
‘’We have not received anything from the Head Office. Whatever is said by the central leadership we follow that. But so far, it is not clear whether the party will contest the state elections or not,’’ he said. However, he claimed that there are several aspirants to contest the elections. The party is in a very good position in the state, he said further. Ali said there is a plan for the state, but it cannot be disclosed. He said the party, however, has taken up membership drives across the state.
‘’If the core committee at the central level wishes to contest the elections, we will participate. The party has to decide then only we can go ahead. It is up to the steering committee of Aam Aadmi Party to decide. In Telangana, aspirants are eagerly waiting and when the signal comes, we would start working,’’ he said.
However, he expressed ignorance over whether the party would give the go ahead for the state unit in the southern region or not. He also could not reply to a question on whether the party would forge a tie-up with any regional party, like the BRS, if it decided to contest the elections.
However, party sources said the party may not contest the elections or take time in arriving at the decision as the party is currently trying to gather support for the Ordinance brought by the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government on control of services in the national capital. “It is possible that the party may not contest Assembly elections in Telangana in view of support required by the party against the Ordinance. Or maybe the decision will be taken later,’’ a source said.
Last year, the party had announced that it would hold a padyatra in the state ahead of the Assembly elections. However, Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao had said that everyone had the right to contest elections in democracy and there was nothing wrong in it.
But with the political situation having changed, AAP National Convenor and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had recently met Telangana Chief Minister and Bharat Rashtra Samiti supremo K. Chandrashekar Rao in Hyderabad. Kejriwal has termed the Ordinance passed by the BJP government against the orders of the Supreme Court as “unconstitutional and undemocratic”. The meeting with the KCR was one of the series of meetings with leaders of various parties in various states against the Ordinance. Lending support to Kejriwal, the Telangana Chief Minister had alleged that the Centre’s Ordinance was an insult to the people of Delhi who elected the Aam Aadmi Party government. The tenure of Telangana Assembly ends in January 2024. Other parties like Congress, BJP, Jana Sena and YSR Telangana Party led by Yeduguri Sandinti Sharmila, daughter of former united Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, have already started preparations for the Assembly polls.