'Khas aadmis' seek LS tickets in UP

AAP aspirants come in SUVs to give interview

Aam Admi Party (AAP) may be claiming that it will field 'common people' against the bigwigs in Uttar Pradesh in the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections, but its ticket aspirants included many a prominent people.

The large number of SUVs and luxury vehicles outside the venue where AAP leaders had conducted the interviews of its prospective Lok Sabha nominees from UP recently, clearly showed that not many among the aspirants were ‘aam aadmi’ (common man).

Though the aspirants included engineers, doctors, homemakers, software professionals, retired bureaucrats and retired judges, there also were many old hands in politics, who had either been denied nominations or expelled by their parent parties for various reasons.

There were also those, who had very recently resigned from their posts to join AAP and were now seeking tickets from their home districts. The 'discarded' politicians included Iliyas Azmi, who was a former Rajya Sabha member of Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). 

Former Samajwadi party (SP) leader K P Yadav was also among the aspirants of AAP ticket. Yadav had recently been expelled from SP after his supporters assaulted the official SP nominee from Jaunpur district. Earlier the SP had given its ticket to Yadav but had later withdrawn it. Similarly Masood Alam Khan, who was denied a nomination by the BSP, had also appeared for the interview for an AAP ticket from Gonda.

Not many women were seen among the AAP aspirants at the interview venue.Former UP police chief Vikram Singh was also an aspirant for LS nomination. Railway trade union leader Shiv Gopal Mishra wants AAP ticket to contest from Lucknow. Arun Tripathi, who had few days back resigned from the post of additional district judge in Deoria has sought ticket from there.

AAP leaders said that the party had received 900 applications for 80 Lok Sabha seats in the state and its started selecting its candidates on Friday. It was not clear if the party would field its nominees on all the seats or would concentrate only on the important ones.

Riding high on its spectacular debut performance in the Delhi assembly elections held recently, AAP hopes to do well in the state in the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls also. The AAP leaders exuded confidence that they could spring a few surprises in the elections.