Aam Admi Party appears to have plans to expand its base in Karnataka. The fledgling political organisation is aiming to contest elections to the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP).
“Our aim is to capture the BBMP and we will work towards it,” Ravi Krishna Reddy, the AAP candidate for Bangalore Rural, said on Sunday. The elections to the local body are due next year and the AAP hopes to repeat is performance in the Delhi Assembly elections.
Reddy slogged it out hard on Sunday, seeking votes in parts of his constituency. A novice in politics, 40-year-old Reddy is a postgraduate in engineering and is a software professional. A native of Anekal in Bangalore district, Reddy lived in the US for several years before returning to India and taking a plunge into the anti-corruption movement.
He is candid enough to admit that AAP should have begun its campaign a bit earlier so that it could have reached the voters better.
“We are facing two practical problems in campaigning. First, lack of time and the second is lack of volunteers. However, the AAP will give a tough fight to the Congress. The BJP and the JD(S) are nowhere in the scene,” Reddy told Deccan Herald, taking his time off from canvassing for a while.
The challenge
Fighting elections in Bangalore Rural is no easy task, that too for a political greenhorn. The constituency, earlier a JD(S) bastion, is now the fiefdom of Energy Minister D K Shivakumar and his MP-brother D K Suresh of the Congress.
The JD(S) and the Congress have a strong support base in a majority of the Assembly segments here. The constituency has several villages and a party like the AAP, which is more of an urban phenomenon, is banking more on voters of urban pockets such as Rajarajeshwarinagar and Bangalore South.
Asked on the challenge of taking against established political leaders, Reddy said: “In Kanakapura republic, it is the money which runs the show. The police are subservient to the ruling party. The JD(S) and the BJP, which had fought the last by-election jointly, have lost moral right to face the people.
So, the AAP has good chances of winning. We are getting good response in urban pockets. Our vote share may touch six per cent in the State and we may become a registered party. T”he AAP is not into politics but into political movement.”
He claimed that the AAP would emerge the fourth largest party in terms of vote share in the LS polls.
Meanwhile, releasing the AAP agenda for Bangalore and Karnataka on Saturday, party executive member Prithvi Reddy said they will launch a campaign titled “Nanna Hana, Nanage Beku Lekka” (Its My Money and I want Accounts) under which RTI applications will be filed seeking information from the Palike on utilisation of funds.