AAP turns focus on Delhi civic polls, to hold booth-level meetings from today

New Delhi: Awaiting the election results in Punjab, Uttarakhand and Goa following hectic campaigning, the Aam Aadmi Party has now turned its focus to the upcoming civic polls here on its home turf, where it will be mounting a challenge to the BJP, the party in power in MCDs for more than a decade.

While the Delhi BJP's poll rhetoric so far has been to attack the AAP on the Delhi government's new Excise Policy and highlight "good works" done by their party while in charge of the MCDs, the AAP has for months now taken issue with the accusing the BJP-led MCDs of systemic corruption and taking up issues of unpaid salaries to civic body staffers.

At a press conference on Wednesday, Delhi Environment Minister and AAP leader Gopal Rai said preparations for the municipal polls are in full swing and that around 20 lakh people of Delhi had taken membership of the party in the last few months.

The Aam Aadmi Party will start holding booth-level meetings with party members, workers and leaders Thursday onwards to prepare its strategy for the municipal election, he said.

The State Election Commission on Tuesday notified that elections for the three municipal corporations in Delhi will be held in April and the publication of the lists of polling stations will begin from Wednesday.

"Upset with the BJP rule in municipal corporations, people have been waiting to see a change for the past 15 years. It's nearing slowly. For this change, we had started a drive on December 5 during which about 20 lakh people took membership of the AAP," said Rai, the convenor of the party's Delhi unit.

The party will now start booth-level meetings at 13,000 booths across Delhi from Thursday to March 10, he said. Meanwhile, the party will also set up booth committees with at least 20 "active members" in each of them, he added. Rai said the AAP will also take out a 'Badlav Yatra' (March for Change) across Delhi on March 12 and March 13 and blow the bugle for the civic polls.

"All preparations for the civic polls has begun at booth levels. With the response we are getting from the people, we are hopeful of achieving our target. People are fed up with the corrupt BJP regime," he added.

AAP leader and MCD-in-charge Durgesh Pathak exuded confidence about the AAP's victory in civic polls and said the people of Delhi will ensure deposits of the saffron party's candidates are forfeited this time.

Pathak, accusing the BJP- led MCDs of making Delhi a garbage mountain, said almost 99 per cent of Delhiites want a change in MCD, and soon the "Kejriwal Model" will bring MCD back on track.

Rai added, "The BJP has been in power for the last 15 years in the MCD. Their rule has been punctuated by all sorts of corruption, misgovernance and agony imposed on innocent residents. The Aam Aadmi Party has taken a resolve to bring a revolutionary change and provide relief to the whole of Delhi by ending the tyranny of the BJP.