Karnataka AAP sets its sights on the long haul

The Aam Aadmi Party in Karnataka seems in no hurry to face elections. Instead, the party intends to build itself from the grassrootsbrick by brick.

“We have a clear aim to fight the 2018 State elections. Currently, we are strategising ways and means to counter traditional political parties, which have money and muscle power,” AAP Karnataka Convener Prithvi Reddy tells BusinessLine .

“We are also busy strengthening our party at the grassroots and unmoved by the series of elections, be it by-elections to three Assembly seats or elections to rural local bodies that are taking place,” he adds.

The party is building its apparatus at the village level and the booth level in urban areas. “At the moment, we are identifying the right people to take the party’s ideas to the people. Simultaneously, we have launched an andolan on local issues, ‘Bribe-free Karnataka’, at the district and taluk level,” Reddy says. “The campaign has received tremendous public support and produced its impact in several government offices. An environment of transparency and clean administration is slowly being created,” he claims.

The AAP has also launched a ‘Corruption Helpline’ to gather information and to identify issues plaguing local communities.

Reddy says the party is currently working on Rule 8 of the Motor Vehicle Act, which mandates that auto drivers in urban areas have a minimum educational qualification.

A campaign titled ‘ Aiyyo Namappa, Dudiyode Thappa ’ was initiated and a petition circulated that has received signatures of over 25,000 auto and taxi drivers in Bengaluru city alone. Thirty thousand-plus auto rickshaw drivers responded through ‘missed calls’. About one lakh drivers have been contacted in all.

The party has also been taking up farmer issues: taking out a rally in support of the Kalasa-Banduri project in north Karnataka’s Dharwad, and backing farmers on issue of the MySugar factory, which has been closed for over a year due to stock pile-up, leading to farmer suicides.

“We also took up milk price issue. The farmers in the State are getting much lower compared with other States on sale price,” Reddy says.

He says the aim is to project the AAP as a party that solves people’s problems and not as a political machine. “We are trying to bring in change in the political system which will be very beneficial for the local communities in long run as compared to short-sighted approach of fighting elections,” explained Reddy.

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