AAP holds rallies to seek people's opinion on govt formation

 The Aam Aadmi Party today held public meetings at about 80 places across the city to seek people's opinion on whether it should form the government in Delhi, with an overwhelming majority giving go-ahead signal.

Senior AAP leaders Manish Sisodia and Kumar Vishwas, and party MLAs attended the public meetings at Mangolpuri, Matiala, Greater Kailash, Matiala, Tilak Nagar, Patparganj and other areas.

At most places, an overwhelming majority of the people favoured the party forming the government in Delhi with the "unconditional" support from Congress.

"I have held meetings in three places today, and most of the people there said that we should form the government. If the sentiment is same in all the wards, then respecting the people's verdict, we may form the government but the final decision would be taken only after Sunday," Sisodia, MLA from Patparganj, said after a rally at Khichripur Village.

The decision would be announced on Monday, he added.

The Arvind Kejriwal-led party had planned to hold rallies in all 272 municipal wards of the 70 Assembly seats in Delhi after Congress wrote a letter to Lt Governor Najeeb Jung, extending unconditional support to AAP to form the government.

There were divergent views among AAP leaders and supporters over the issue, with some saying that Kejriwal should not form the government with the support of Congress as they have won the elections against the century-old party.

The other group was in favour of AAP forming the government in Delhi, with Kejriwal as Chief Minister.

To ensure the authenticity of the public meetings and to endorse transparency, AAP was recording the proceedings of the meetings. It had decided to put these online so that anybody can verify.

Kejriwal had on Tuesday announced that party would go for a referendum on the issue and had invited views from the residents of Delhi through SMS, interactive voice response system over telephone and through email.

"We have received over seven lakh responses from the people through SMS, IVRS and emails. With one more day to go, we expect we would get more responses," said AAP leader Dilip Pandey, who is in-charge of social media campaign.