After Punjab, the AAP has decided to spread its wings to other States as well. AAP convener and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal will be addressing a major rally in Goa on May 22.
Source in the AAP said after getting overwhelming response in Punjab, the party has decided to contest Assembly poll in some other States as well. Internal surveys by the AAP have reportedly revealed that if the party was able to continue its present momentum till next year’s Assembly elections in Punjab, it was bound to sweep about 100 of the 110 seats in the State.
“If elections are held in the next few weeks, we are going to sweep the Punjab poll. But we have to ensure that we continue the present momentum till Assembly elections,” a senior AAP leader told The Pioneer.
As far as Goa is concerned, senior party leaders like Sanjay Singh and Ashutosh had made several visit to the State in the past few months. The ground-level surveys conducted by the party for its internal consumption showed that people in Goa were keen to have AAP as the main contender in the Goa Assembly polls. In the last lok Sabha elections, AAP’s candidates had secured about 15,000 to 20,000 votes in the two lok Sabha seats in Goa.
What is perhaps worrying the AAP leadership is the coming by-elections in 13 municipal wards in Delhi. The party fears that if it failed to sweep the 13 municipal wards, chances are high that the opposition parties in Punjab may use it to their advantage claiming that Delhiites had rejected 15-month governance model of the AAP in the national Capital. “That’s precisely why Kejriwal has been advised not to campaign in the municipal by-polls in Delhi. That would give room to AAP to claim that the by-polls should not be linked with the Delhi Government’s performance as the issues concerning Assembly and civic polls are totally different,” an AAP leader said.
The AAP had stunned one and all by sweeping 67 of the 70 Assembly seats in Delhi. But the party had failed to register a single victory in any of the seven seats in the lok Sabha elections in Delhi. “Now, everyone is expecting the AAP to repeat its Assembly’s performance in municipal bye-polls, which is not fair. When we contest all the 272 municipal wards in 2017, then one can adopt this logic. At that time, people would know what we had done in the Delhi Government in two-and-a-half years, and what mess the BJP had created in the three municipal bodies in five years.”