By Avinash Prabhakar
New Delhi, March 19 (IANS) After turning into a national party, the Aam Aadmi Party has now started preparing for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. While on the one hand, the party is working to form new organisational structures after dismantling old ones in poll-bound states, at the same time, its national convenor and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal is meeting leaders of various opposition parties.
This month, Kejriwal visited Karnataka on March 4, Chhattisgarh on March 5, Rajasthan on March 13, and Madhya Pradesh on March 14. It was Kejriwal’s first election tour in these states. During the visit, he held Tiranga Yatras, addressed rallies and met local party leaders to strengthen the party at grassroots level.
He also met Bihar Deputy Chief Minister and RJD leader Tejaswi Yadav on February 14. This was his fourth meeting with opposition party leaders. On February 7, he met Jharkhand Chief Minister and JMM leader Hemant Soren at his residence in Delhi and JD-U leader K.C. Tyagi in January-end.
Kejriwal also shared the stage with Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao at the Bharat Rashtra Samithi’s Khammam rally. Apart from AAP leader and Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, CPI leader D. Raja and Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan were also present.
Meanwhile, the Delhi Chief Minister has also presented the party’s vision for the country on several occasions.
At the party’s National Council meet held in December, he had said: “I have a vision for the whole country… AAP is only the medium that will help achieve the vision. I envision an India that is a global education hub, where no one sleeps hungry, where underprivileged get top-class education-healthcare and become rich. In our vision for India, there is no scope for caste-religion divides, if the nation can’t unite for once and for all, it won’t be able to progress.”
His speech suggested that the party leaders would be going with the ‘Delhi model’ pitch in other states also. The meeting had concluded with the National Council noting the party’s achievements over the last decade and passing resolutions against rising inflation and unemployment and Chinese aggression.
A party functionary said that AAP’s national posturing would increase in the coming days with party leadership being vocal on national issues, especially security, unemployment and foreign policies.
Meanwhile, in an interview with IANS, AAP Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh had said that undoubtedly 2024 is a big challenge for all of them and this should candidly be admitted. But, before going into 2024, there are a plethora of questions that this government needs to answered.
“We will go into the 2024 general election with all these issues that the country is facing today. If the election is fought on these issues, leaving the politics of hatred behind, we think BJP will have no answer on these issues”, Singh had said.
On the strategy for the 2024 election, he said the opposition strategy should be to offer better governance to the country, not to defeat a person.
–IANS
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