The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) will field at least eight candidates for the elections in the City Corporation.
Party district convener K. Kunhiraman said the AAP would contest in select wards of all the three-tier panchayats as well as the municipalities and the city corporation. “We will have not less than eight candidates in the Corporation,” said Mr. Kunhiraman.
Strict guidelines
The central unit of the AAP had issued strict guidelines on weather a candidate should be fielded or a particular ward should be selected for this election. Candidates can be fielded in a ward of a local body only if there are at least 10 active volunteers for the party, said Krishnakumar Ramanathan, a member of the party’s district executive committee.
The party would hold an opinion survey in the respective wards before a decision is taken on the candidature of a particular person to understand the prospect of the party.
Regular meetings and different activities to connect with the people are also mandatory if a ward needs to qualify for fielding a candidate in the election, he said.
Recently, an AAP candidate had won in a by-election held at Ward 21 of the Aarthungal panchayat in Alappuzha.
The party had also secured a significant share of votes in the last Lok Sabha election from the Malabar region. It had bagged nearly 20,000 votes from two constituencies in Kozhikode in the Lok Sabha election.
The party now is busy going through the process to select the candidates and finalise the wards. The district unit will hold a special meeting to finalise the candidates on Wednesday. “The list will be released after that,” Mr. Kunhiraman said.