Though a new player in the electoral politics of Gujarat, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is all set to take on the mighty BJP in the upcoming assembly elections by strengthening its organization to the village level and mobilizing volunteers. A senior party leader said the Arvind Kejriwal-led organization is strengthening its organization at the grassroots level through “Panna Parivar Pramukhs” and village committees, each consisting of up to 50 volunteers, so that by the end of the year To counter the BJP in the upcoming elections.
The Delhi-headquartered organization began rebuilding its organizational structure in Gujarat in June after dissolving the then existing units. The reconstruction exercise has taken the party to the village level. AAP’s national joint general secretary Isudan Gadhvi said the next step would be to cover a page of the Panna or voter list by appointing the Panna Parivar Pramukh.
The party, founded in 2012, is appointing a “Panna Parivar Pramukh” at the booth level to counter the BJP’s “Panna Pramukh,” or “Page Committee” model, with members in charge of each and every page of the electoral roll. “AAP Parivar” who will vote for the party. Gadhvi said AAP is focusing on micro-management and door-to-door campaigning to woo voters in the state, where the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been in power for more than two decades.
“Other parties believe in caste equation, we believe in public equation. BJP cannot win with such micro-planning. The AAP leader claimed that BJP workers have become disillusioned with his leadership and that his party may add to the feeling of his alleged disenchantment.
“The BJP had a strong organisation, no doubt about it. But we believe that now has passed as BJP workers are also fed up with the party. They have understood that top BJP leaders take full advantage of this. When it comes to workers, they (leaders) deny them benefits by calling them (freebies) ‘freebies’,” Gadhvi said. PTI.
AAP has campaigned in the villages of Gujarat as part of its aim to expand and deepen its base in the state. “As far as AAP is concerned, we have so far formed committees in 16,000 of the 18,000 villages in the state. We have 6,000 committees at the ward level.
The National Joint General Secretary said that at the village level, the party has announced the names of office bearers, and each of them has been given the responsibility of looking after a cluster of five villages. “These leaders have formed committees in 16,000 villages. In each village there is a committee of 10-50 volunteers.
“We will have a village committee in each of the 18,000 villages in the state. We will have more than 1.5 lakh dedicated AAP workers at the village level. He said that as soon as village level committees are constituted, the party will start work on the appointment of Panna Parivar heads.
Ek Panna Parivar Pramukh” will take care of the AAP family members in the voter list at the booth level, the politician said. “This will be done by September 15. It will leave the BJP behind (in terms of organizational strength), Gadvi claimed.
So far, the party has formed state and district bodies, and divided an assembly constituency into four blocks. Each block has an organizational secretary. He said 12-55 “circle in-charges” would work under a secretary. Gujarat has a 182-member assembly.
Gadhvi insisted that the Congress is no longer an option for voters in Gujarat, where the oldest party has been out of power for more than 20 years. He said the opposition party mainly got anti-BJP votes from people fed up with the saffron outfit, who had no other option till AAP came.
Gadhvi said that in the February 2021 local body elections, the AAP did not have a strong worker base or organizational strength when it got a significant chunk of votes in Ahmedabad, Rajkot and Surat. People are looking for a viable alternative in the state. Now that the AAP has gained momentum, the people of Gujarat are full of hope.
He said that party guarantees (pre-poll promises) targeted to different sections of voters are playing a big role in attracting people to AAP. Gadhvi said that the party has lagged behind as far as the announcement of names of candidates for the assembly elections is concerned.
“We had decided long back in January that we would declare the first list of 30 candidates by the end of July or the first week of August. We are a little late as we have only done this on ten seats. We don’t care how BJP or Congress proceed on this. In early August, AAP became the first political party in Gujarat to announce the names of its candidates for the upcoming elections.
The early announcement of names will help the candidates to work hard in the election campaign. The names of 10 candidates were announced after a survey, the AAP leader said, “Our booth committees are ready on each of these ten seats. There are 20 people in each booth. We had earlier identified a hardcore AAP worker at each of the 280-300 booths in each of these seats. We have focused on micro-management of seats. He said the party would focus on door-to-door campaigning to attract voters instead of mega rallies.
“We will focus on door-to-door campaigning to counter the local caste equation. Through this method of campaigning, we will spread awareness among the people about the promises made by the party.
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