There is no other way to say this. The Aam Aadmi Party is to the protests in and around Chhattisgarh’s Hasdeo Arand what the RSS was to the ‘India Against Corruption (IAC)’ Movement of Anna Hazare.
The protests against the Rajasthan Government’s PEKB (Parsa East and Kente Basan) coal block and its expansion in the Hasdeo Forest area seemed to have gained followers on ground this year. Ostensibly they are for environmental and social concerns. But if you look closer, you will see the political markings that fuel their upsurge.
To understand the ins and outs of the smooth mobilisation that the protests have benefited from, one needs look no further than the Aam Aadmi Party’s star strategist Sandeep Pathak. The AAP In-Charge for the Gujarat elections, as well as the party’s co-prabhari (in-charge) for Punjab (where he’s also a Rajya Sabha MP), hails from Mungeli, not far from the epicentre of the Hasdeo Arand protests. But even besides Pathak, activists like Priyanka Shukla — who is simultaneously one of the faces of the Hasdeo protests as well as AAP in the region — stand testament to the fact that AAP is using the Hasdeo Arand issue as an electoral plank for the Chhattisgarh state elections in 2023.
The story goes back to 2018, when the Aam Aadmi Party chose Komal Hupendi, an Adivasi leader, as its CM face.
Despite its loss in that election the AAP has not stopped eyeing Chhattisgarh and its tribal voter (just as it eyes the tribal vote in Gujarat this year).