BJP, Congress must watch out for AAP in Uttarakhand: Experts

DEHRADUN: With the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) launching a mass outreach campaign in Uttarakhand to prepare for the 2022 Assembly Elections, experts say that two main political stakeholders in the state—the ruling BJP and opposition Congress—need to watch out. 

AAP leader and Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia on Monday flagged off 70 vans with five party workers each as part of the Uttarakhand me bhi Kejriwal (Kejriwal in Uttarakhand too) campaign.

The vans will travel to each of the 70 constituencies in the state and AAP workers will hold a total of 6,500 public meetings in the next 45 days with a target to add one lakh new party members. 

Jay Singh Rawat, a Dehradun-based political analyst, said, “The AAP seems serious about making inroads in Uttarakhand in the upcoming state assembly elections. The BJP and Congress should watch out as these are the parties who have had a monopoly since the formation of the state.”

The AAP has been active in Uttarakhand since winning the Delhi assembly polls in 2019 and has launched a membership drive to get ready for 2022 polls in the hill state. The party had also started a membership campaign through ‘missed calls’.

While visiting the state last month, Sisodia had challenged the BJP government to list even one thing they have done for the development of the state.

The AAP leader has been attacking both the BJP and the Congress. 

“The AAP is trying everything to make space for itself in Uttarakhand. In the long-term gameplan, Uttarakhand seems to hold more important place than Uttar Pradesh in AAP’s electoral politics,” Yogesh Kumar, another political analyst from the state, said.

AAP had contested the 2014 Lok Sabha elections in the state but failed to win any seat. Following the electoral disaster of 2014, the AAP had decided not to contest the 2017 Assembly Election.

In the year 2018, it fielded a transgender candidate Rajni Rawat for the mayoral post of Dehradun who stood a distant third behind BJP and Congress candidates.