The Aam Aadmi Party has constituted a new organisational team putting its expansion plans across the country on the fast track while focusing on finding suitable faces to project at the regional levels.
The new team, finalised at a meeting of the party’s Political Affairs Committee, has seen the elevation of Arvind Kejriwal loyalists such as Ashutosh.
“The PAC has decided to hasten the process of organisation development throughout the country. The team will help the National Convenor (Kejriwal) to oversee ‘Mission Vistaar (Expansion)’,” the party said.
Incidentally, expansion at the national level was one of the contentious issues behind the split in the party which saw the ouster of senior leaders like Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan after a period of bitter infighting.
“Arvind Kejriwal is a national face. We have no hesitation in saying that... On the same note, as we are going to the other states, we are looking for new faces. We want to identify the faces which will become our regional faces,” said Pankaj Gupta, in-charge of party affairs in Karnataka, Goa and Maharashtra.
The AAP leader also hinted that the party was going to focus on expansion in Punjab and Haryana, among other states, in the near future.
The May 3 PAC meet has tasked Mr. Ashutosh, who was earlier the Delhi convenor, with coordination and handling of the National Convenor’s Secretariat.
Dilip Pandey has been made the Delhi convenor with the additional charge of handling communications, while the party’s young face Raghav Chadha, also a spokesperson, has been made the treasurer of the party’s Delhi team.
A number of party MLAs like Saurabh Bhardwaj, Alka Lamba, Somnath Bharti, Amanatullah, Naresh Balyan has been given organisational work and responsibilities of various states.
Greater Kailash MLA Bhardwaj has been made the Secretary of the party’s Delhi unit while Malviya Nagar MLA Somnath Bharti will look after all the southern states.
Burari MLA Sanjeev Jha has been made in-charge of Bihar and Jharkhand, Laxmi Nagar MLA Nitin Tyagi of Rajasthan while Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh would be looked after by Sadar Bazar MLA Som Dutt.
Moreover, senior leaders Sanjay Singh and Kumar Vishwas would be in-charge of Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and NRI, funding and campaigning, respectively. Durgesh Pathak has been tasked with organisational building.
Senior lawyer HS Phoolka is the party’s new legal head while former banker Meera Sanyal will head the policy research and analysis wing.
