After the party’s astounding performance in the Delhi Assembly elections, the Aam Aadmi Party on Saturday announced to field strong candidates against Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Bharatiya Janata Party prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi in the 2014 lok Sabha polls.
The AAP also said it would contest all the parliamentary seats in Uttar Pradesh and had started searching candidates for them. “Our senior leader Kumar Vishwas has already been selected to contest election against Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi from Amethi constituency. We also plan to field strong candidate against Sonia Gandhi in the Rae Bareli constituency and would work to defeat her,” AAP executive committee member Sanjay Singh told reporters on Saturday.
He, however, refused to disclose the name of the candidate to be fielded against Sonia Gandhi. Hitting out at Narendra Modi, the AAP executive member said if the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate wanted to prove something, he should contest the election against Rahul Gandhi from Amethi. “This will show who has greater support of the people,” Singh said, adding that the AAP would also field a strong candidate against the Gujarat Chief Minister.
According to sources in the party, AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal could contest the lok Sabha election against Sonia Gandhi or Narendra Modi. However, no official announcement has been made in this regard so far. In a meeting of the office-bearers of AAP’s Awadh Zone, it was decided to search the party candidates for the lok Sabha election in the state within a month.
The party has set criteria for selection of the candidates — (i) there should be no serious or criminal charge against the candidate, (11) the candidate should not be involved in any corruption case, and (iii) the candidate should have a clean image. The candidates proposed by the party’s district units would be screened properly by the central committee before announcing the name.
“If we get proper candidates for all the lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh, then we will contest all seats. For us the character of candidates, and not their number, id more important,” Singh said. Regarding the formation of government in Delhi, Singh said if the Congress and the BJP accepted the 18 conditions set by the AAP, only then something could happen otherwise there was no option except re-election.
On Anna Hazare’s fast-onto-death, Singh said they has no dispute with the “father like leader Anna Hazare” and the party would support him. “This bill which the present Government wants to pass is still not the lokpal bill but a “jokepal... We will talk to Anna about this,” he added. Singh regretted that the politics and people of the state were divided on religion and castes basis instead of real issues like electricity, water, corruption, etc.
“Some leaders politicising riots, temples, mosques for their electoral gains. But our priority in to get rid of such issues. “Today’s youths are confused due to the religion-caste based politics,” he added. Hitting out at the Samajwadi Party, Singh said it had brought “family rule” to the state and the ruling party had drifted from the ideology of socialist leader Ram Manohar lohia who used to say that the party was his family. He said the Samajwadi Party had failed to fulfil its promise to uplift Muslims and youths of the state. Giving unemployment allowance to youths is no solution to the rising employment,” he added.