Mumbai: The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Monday announced its first list of contesting candidates for the upcoming assembly elections.
The party released the names of eight candidates in the first list who will be fielded from Brahmapuri constituency of Chandrapur, Kalveer constituency of Kolhapur, Nandgaon constituency of Nashik, Kothrud and Parvati from Pune, and Chandivli, Dindoshi and Jogeshwari (East) constituencies of the Mumbai suburbs.
The party has given tickets to Paromita Goswami for the Brahmapuri constituency of Chandrapur. Goswami is a social activist who is known to spearhead campaigns for liquor prohibition in the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra.
The 49-year-old has also fought for the tribal land rights and due to her immense popularity among the masses she can outweigh candidates from opposition parties.
Showing confidence in Goswami, AAP national spokesperson and Maharashtra chief Preeti Sharma Menon said, “The party has faith in Goswami’s leadership, as she is immensely popular among the masses of her constituency.
Also we are planning to field as many female candidates as possible.” From Dindoshi constituency, AAP has fielded former trade union leader Dilip Tawde, who is a grassroots volunteer of the party.
Sources revealed the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) is planning to field Sharmila Thackeray from Dindoshi.
While the manifesto of the party is yet to be released, party leaders said their manifesto will mainly address issues like health, education and environment conservation. The party will contest in not more than 50 seats.
There were speculations of the party venturing into an alliance with Prakash Ambedkar’s, Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) to which Menon said, the final call is yet to be taken.
“The who’s who of both AAP and VBA are in talks and we will soon take a call. Even if the alliance doesn’t work, we are ready to fight alone,” asserted Menon.
The AAP election campaign is stated to commence from Wednesday, when MP Sanjay Singh will be coming to Mumbai to discuss the Aarey issue.
