Leaders and cadre of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) down south are a demoralised lot and feel ‘neglected’ by the central leadership of the party.
Crying foul over the manner in which they were “completely overlooked” and left to fend for themselves in the general elections, they are now gearing up to build the party from the grassroots and prepare for future challenges.
Even as the party seems to be falling apart, with its prominent leaders such as founder member G.R. Gopinath and Shazia Ilmi sending in their resignations, the Andhra Pradesh unit met at Ongole to review its poll performance.
Replying to a question whether Arvind Kejriwal’s ‘failed agitational politics’ had had an adverse impact on the party cadre which reflected in its performance in the elections, the AAP State convenor B. Ramakrishna Raju said: “The AAP is in the process of evolving.
The initial euphoria associated with the AAP is gone for the simple reason that euphoria does not last for long. Since the Congress party was badly mauled in the recent elections, it gives a wider scope for a party like the AAP to bounce back. We need to conduct ourselves in a more mature way.”
Meanwhile, sources in the party said post-elections, a wider group of leaders at the central level has decided to take charge of the party affairs after realising the banes of the “immature” politics of Mr. Kejriwal.
ResolutionsThe A.P. unit, in its meeting passed a set of resolutions.
It called for the setting up of a State office in Guntur, in addition to the one in Hyderabad, to take up people’s issues and address them at district and State levels and to exert pressure on the government for fulfilment of the promises it had made in the elections.
Watchdog“The party will play the role of a watch dog on governance insisting on transparency and accountability at every level of decision-making. We will fight for stringent electoral reforms to curb malpractices and will hold a public hearing on the conduct of the general elections in the last week of June,” Mr. Raju said.
