AAP To Launch Nationwide Campaign To Connect With 1 Crore People

As part of its expansion plan, the AAP will launch a campaign from February 23 to March 23 in all states to connect with one crore people, senior party leader Gopal Rai said on Sunday.

Mr Rai after taking oath along with his other ministerial colleagues at a ceremony at the Ramlila Maidan in Delhi chaired a meeting with Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) state office bearers at the Chief Minister's residence.

"In the meeting, it was decided that work would be done on three things. Firstly, the state units will start the ''Rashtra Nirman'' campaign from February 23 to March 23, they will run it in all states and under it, volunteers will hold meetings. Their target is to connect one crore people with the party," he told PTI.

"Secondly, posters inviting people to join the ''nation building'' campaign by giving a missed call on ''9871010101'' shall be published in all legislative assembly constituencies in India," the AAP leader said.

Thirdly, the party's state leadership will hold press conferences in capitals and later in other major cities of the states to "disseminate the message of nation building by joining the AAP", Mr Rai said.

"Since elections to local bodies in many states are to be scheduled in the coming months, we want to take this campaign aggressively to the grassroots, so that we can contest local body elections and get good results," he said.

In the first stage of the campaign, around 12 lakh people from across the country had joined the AAP's ''Rashtra Nirman'' campaign since February 11 by giving a missed call on 9871010101.

In the next stage of the campaign, Mr Rai said the party will decide where all it will contest assembly polls.

The party has already decided to fight local polls to strengthen its hold on the ground, he said.

The AAP registered a landslide victory in the Delhi assembly polls, leaving its main rival BJP way behind and decimating the Congress in a bitterly-fought contest. Since then the party has again started building upon its national ambition.

The AAP is at present recognised by the Election Commission as a state party. It emerged as the principal opposition in Punjab in 2017. However, its national ambitions suffered a setback when its campaigns in Goa and in the last two Lok Sabha elections were unsuccessful.

It won four Lok Sabha seats in Punjab in 2014 and just one in 2019, while Delhi voters rejected it in both the general elections.

Arvind Kejriwal also burnt his fingers in 2014 when he contested against Narendra Modi, who was the BJP's prime ministerial candidate, in the Varanasi Lok Sabha seat, losing by over three lakh votes.

Many saw a shift in the AAP's strategy after the party's drubbing in the 2017 civic polls in Delhi at the hands of the BJP, as it again focussed on its development pitch in the national capital.