Too early to expand at national level, believes AAP faction

The decision of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) to go the whole hog in the Lok Sabha elections has become a little unsavoury with a faction in the party expressing its reservation. They feel that due to paucity of time for preparations, the move might boomerang and unscrupulous elements may also end up joining the party.

Updated on: Jan 10, 2014, 01:05:00 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The decision of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) to go the whole hog in the Lok Sabha elections has become a little unsavoury with a faction in the party expressing its reservation. They feel that due to paucity of time for preparations, the move might boomerang and unscrupulous elements may also end up joining the party.

On Saturday, the party had announced to contest most of the LS seats. The party is confident of doing well in the national arena in vote percentage, even if it fails to get a large chunk of seats. While there was unanimity that the party should use the 2014 polls for its national aspirations, there was a view that the party should test the waters only in its stronghold of Delhi, Haryana, western Uttar Pradesh and some urban centres.

“The party should first show that it can deliver and improve life of people in Delhi where it is in power. Spreading the wings across the country may prove counter-productive if the party fails to make a reasonable mark,” a party leader said.

The danger, sources say, is that the party would come under attack from different political parties, including regional outfits across India, whom it will challenge in the polls as the there is dearth of resources and infrastructure to counter the challenge.

Some leaders believe unscrupulous elements from other parties may join in the disguise of being reformist and side-line the genuine crusaders against corruption. The party does not have a mechanism to check the past record of those who are becoming its members. Not having a system to filter members may turn AAP into any other political party in India, party source said.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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