Eye on polls, AAP tries to woo migrants, Poorvanchalis

Kickstarting its attempts to attract migrant voters from Poorvanchal and Bihar, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has given tickets to 7 out of 51 declared candidates for the upcoming Delhi assembly election, roping in almost 40 lakh voters in the process who hold the key to their victory. 

All political parties are doing their best to woo these voters from eastern UP and Bihar. Poorvanchalis comprise one third of the total voters in the city. 

AAP has given ticket to Gopal Rai (Babarpur), Sanjeev Jha (Burari), Rituraj Jha (Kirari), Somnath Bharti (Malviya Nagar), Akhilesh Pati Tripathi (Model Town), Vandana Kumari (Shalimar Bagh), Kapil Mishra (Karawal Nagar) for the forthcoming assembly election.

The newbie party is looking for its major support base in migrants living in unauthorised colonies and JJ clusters, which has been a strong-hold of the Congress. With the migrant voters expected to be the game-changers in the upcoming Assembly elections, the parties are leaving no stones unturned to woo them. The migrants constitute nearly 47 per cent of the total population of the national Capital. Though, they comprise people from all parts of the country but those who have altered the political grammar of the state are primarily from Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. People from Uttarakhand comprise nearly 10 to 12 per cent in 10 constituencies and thus are able to decide the fate of the candidates effectively.

AAP said they do not believe in such calculations and their spokesperson said: “We believe on the capacity and clean background of our candidates. Caste and regionalism is not in our core and we don’t believe in this sort of politics.” AAP has not given any ticket to any of the migrants from Uttarakhand as of now. 

Meanwhile, AAP is all set to attract rural Delhi voters as well. The party can give the ticket to Brahmins and Yadavs, who have influence in these seats. In the last assembly election, they had got only one seat out of 13 in these areas. 

Eight seats are dominated by the Jats while three are occupied by the Gujjar community and one seat is reserved. Among these 13 seats, AAP has won only one seat in the last Assembly polls.