AAP wants Naxals in its fold

Explaining his contention on the deployment of special forces like the Army and paramilitary jawans, he said that there can only be three conditions under which such a security measure could be taken by the governments, both at the Centre and in states on their own.

“The first case would be prevention of infiltration through the borders and the national government should have discretion to deploy the Army and the second situation could be communal riots, where state governments should have the liberty to deploy military forces to protect minority from genocide, as it happened during the 1984 anti-Sikh riots or in 2002 in Gujarat.

In the third situation, in which normal civil security is to be provided, for any such deployment in this case, consent of the people of the area should be ascertained,” he insisted.

When pointedly asked if he favoured a referendum on the deployment of the paramilitary forces in Naxal-affected areas, Bhushan said this falls under the third category as, in this case also, the special armed forces serve the interest of big corporates more than the displaced and hapless tribals.

To become a member of AAP, one could give a mi­ssed call to 07798220033, or provide their voter identification number.

Speaking to reporters, nat­ional executive committee member, AAP, Prithvi Reddy said that since many people have not been able to pay the membership fee of '10 for a period of three years, they have decided to waive it.

“We had given people the option of either manually filling membership forms or submitting them onl­ine, both of which invo­lved collection of fee. But we later found that data entry and maintenance of records was a laborious task.

Also, lakhs of people did not become members as they could not pay the fee,” he explained. While AAP has so far received 80,000 online registrations, it has not tabulated its manual registration forms yet.

Besides its membership drive, the party, which int­e­nds to contest from at least 12 constituencies in the state in the coming parli­a­mentary elections, also announced the formation of a political str­ategic committee (PSC) and a state screening com­mittee to select candidates for the poll.

The screening committee’s job will be to scrutinise applications of candidates aspiring to contest the elections and shortlist names of three candidates for every parliamentary constituency.

The PSC which will have on board experts with a deep understanding of issues and politics of Karnataka, will do the final selection.

“We have still not decided on how many constitu­encies to contest from, but as we have stro­ng teams in Beng­aluru, Mysore, Hubli-Dhar­wad, Bel­g­a­um and Hyder­abad-Karn­ataka, we could cho­ose aro­und a dozen from these regi­ons,” Reddy explained, add­ing the pa­rty would take the help of booth level volunteers to find the best can­didates in the

dis­­tr­icts.

“These volunteers will con­d­uct a door-to-door camp­aign to enroll more members and also help us find the right candidates to field,” he said.

A section of the Aam Aadmi Party wants Sanjay Singh to contest from Sultanpur and challenge BJP MP Varun Gandhi who is likely to contest from this seat.

Sources in AAP said that though a formal announcement of candidates would be made later, senior party leaders have already decided on candidates for key constituencies.

“Shazia Ilmi is the likely candidate to challenge Union minister Jitin Prasada from Dhaurhara. She also has the option of taking on Union minister Sriprakash Jaiswal from Kanpur. Shazia belong to an illustrious Muslim family from Kanpur and is well equipped to take on either of the two ministers,” the AAP leader said.

In Lucknow, secretary general of the All India Engineer’s Federation Shailendra Dubey is the likely candidate. There are also reports that filmmaker Sudhir Misra could be asked to contest the prestigious Lucknow seat.

Another AAP leader Prashant Bhushan is tipped to contest from Allahabad where his family comes from.

Senior journalist Ashutosh, according to AAP sources, may be asked to contest the Ghaziabad seat against BJP president Rajnath Singh. Incidentally, Ashutosh belongs to Mirzapur district in Uttar Pradesh which adjoins the native village of BJP president Rajnath Singh.

“There are some more high profile people ready to join AAP and they may be fielded against leaders like Mulayam Singh Yadav and Dimple Yadav. We will make sure that each of the top leaders faces a tough challenge in their own constituencies,” the source said.

AAP has, so far, received over 1,350 applications for election tickets from across India and one-third of these are from Uttar Pradesh alone.

“Unlike other parties that impose candidates, our nominees will be selected by the people after thorough public scrutiny. We will withdraw candidates even at the last moment if it comes to light that they are involved in any corrupt or criminal activity,” said Aruna Singh, the Avadh Prant coordinator of AAP.

The saffronites also accused the AAP of promoting “anarchy”. BJP leader Harsh Vardhan said: “This is definitely promoting anarchy. It is a sign of bad governance.”

Following the pandemonium, Kejriwal said that the public hearing, which was to be held by each of the six ministers on weekdays and by the entire Cabinet on Saturday outside the Secretariat building, has been suspended for the next three-four days.

With the much flaunted janata durbar ending in chaos, the Delhi CM apologised for his administration’s mishandling of the event.

“There could have been a stampede if I had not left,” Kejriwal said.

We have become used to decisions being taken behind closed doors," he said. Admitting flaws, Kejriwal said: "I agree that there were loopholes in crowd management. I have apologised to the public for the same."

He said that the next time, public hearing would be held at "a stadium or a bigger place and only after putting all proper arrangements in place".

The AAP show started exactly at 9.30 on the wintry morning as Kejriwal and his Cabinet stepped out of the Secretariat and sat on plastic chairs on the road in front of gate No. 6. By this time, a huge crowd had gathered and kept swelling every minute.

People from different institutions, organisations, unions like DTC and NRHM, among others, with placards and posters also reached the venue. There was only one entry point with metal detectors. The crowd was asked to queue up and wait for their turn.

Within minutes, things went beyond control as the crowd got restless and everyone wanted to reach the chief minister and the ministers. A mad frenzy ensued as everyone wanted to reach the chief minister.

People began climbing on desks and chairs around the chief minister to attract his attention. The security personnel immediately threw a protective cordon and whisked the Chief Minister away.

With Kejriwal gone, the crowd surged towards the desk of education and PWD minister Manish Sisodia. In minutes, Sisodia also left. With these two gone, the crowd kept hanging at the door of the Secretariat.

However, despite the chaos, some people did manage to lodge their grievances with the other ministers, including Somnath Bharti, Rakhi Birla and Saurabh Bhardwaj.

After a while. Kejriwal reappeared with Sisodia and began addressing the crowd from the rooftop. "Today we made our first attempt to listen to grievances. We should have made better arrangements.

I apologise for the poor arrangements," he said. There was mixed reaction to the darbar with some cheering and applauding Kejriwal’s rooftop address, while others were disappointed. "I came to talk to the CM, but didn’t get any chance to meet him. I was here since early morning but they had made no special arrangements for women.

Now I’m leaving without being heard,” lamented Lakshmi Nagar resident Anuradha, who had come to complain about the non-allotment of a new plot against her demolished unauthorised jhuggi.

Later, speaking to the media, Kejriwal said that if he had not left the venue, there could have been a stampede. "Everyone wanted to meet me," he said. The CM also "thanked" people for the response.

Responding to a query on the BJP accusing him of taking decisions in a hurry, Kejriwal said, "Yes we are in a hurry. If people do not take steps at the earliest, then this country will not survive."

On the question of better management of public hearings by the SP and the JD(U), Kejriwal claimed that it was the "matter of faith". For him, "not as many people turn up in those meetings. Those people who turned up today had faith that their problems will be resolved.”

He also said that he was taking stock of the complaints and would try to resolve them accordingly. "We have divided grievances into five categories.

We will try to resolve plain complaints related to ration cards and government schemes not reaching people within 7-10 days. Those cases which require a change in policy cannot be resolved in a day or two and a time limit will be set for them."

As the majority of the crowd at the darbar comprised of contractual workers. the chief minister will write to every department, asking “why contractual workers could not be made permanent”.