The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has planned to contest on all the 227 seats in the upcoming Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) elections scheduled to be held in 2022.
AAP has decided to showcase its ‘Delhi government model’ in which it has claimed to have improved the government schools, infrastructure and hospital in the national Capital. According to AAP’s Delhi legislator Atishi Marlena, the party will be a major force in the 2022 polls.
“People are tired of the misrule of the Shiv Sena which has been in power in BMC from the past three decades. They want an alternative which will be provided by the AAP,” said Marlena, who is on a two-day visit to assess the situation in Mumbai.
AAP has already started its membership drive and is planning its web campaign from next month.
“We will start exposing the ruling Shiv Sena from next month. We have filed dozens of RTI (Right to Information) applications and will attack the ruling party on the basis of documents,” said party leader Priti Sharma Menon, who is in charge of Maharashtra.
The party has also planned to start a webinar to seek donations. We plan to raise at least Rs5 crore as seed money to fund our election campaign. AAP has already opened two core offices in Bandra and Malad and plans to open many more across the city. It will also start appointing ward-level presidents.
Meanwhile, Sena legislator Manisha Kayande said she was confident that the party will return to power again. “Citizens have always trusted the Sena and we’ve always proven ourselves with our work. Let AAP contest the polls; we are confident that Sena will win again,” she said.
Political analysts said AAP will face a huge challenge in Mumbai.
“No doubt people need an alternative, but AAP faces a huge challenge as it has to first attract good workers, raise adequate funds as well as convince the people of Mumbai that they are a credible alternative, like they did in Delhi,” said political analyst Hemant Desai.
The 2022 BMC elections is slated to turn into a high-stakes contest as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is gearing to displace Shiv Sena from the corporation under its campaign ‘Mission Mumbai’. It has already started campaigning for the polls and has appointed Kandivli legislator Atul Bhatkalkar to head the mission. The Congress has declared to contest the polls alone, despite it being the allies of the Sena and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) in the state government.
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