The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) may be contesting 30 seats in the state but if sources are to be believed it is focusing its energy on just 10. These 10, sources say are the seats where the party has a 'shot at winning' as per an internal survey carried out by its workers. The seats are Unjha, Palanpur, Chhota Udepur, Rajkot (east), Gondal, Lathi, Kamrej, Karanj, Pardi and Dhrangadhra.
Of this, four are urban seats while the rest are semi-urban or rural seats. "These are the seats where the party has managed to make inroads even at the booth level. We have managed to have an organisational structure. The seats are also such in which the party feels it is in a direct fight with the party that won the last election," said a source.
"The AAP feels it is a direct fight because its candidates for the 10 seats are such that they fit into the caste and other equations of those seats. Moreover, it feels that the candidates it has announced for these 10 seats have some standing among the voters," said a source in know of the development.
The sources also said that given that the party was fighting with limited resources it makes sense to give the organisation's backing on seats where they stood a chance. What is interesting about these 10 seats is that four of them were won by the Congress but with a victory margin of 5,000 or less votes. In fact, in seats like Lathi and Chhota Udepur, the Congress barely made it with a victory margin of 2,000 votes. It should be noted that since the AAP announced its decision to contest the Assembly elections, it has been criticised as the B-team of BJP as many feel that it will end up splitting the anti-BJP votes.
The rest of the six seats were won by the BJP all with a margin of over 17,000 votes.
Those in the know said for the AAP, winning even a seat or two will be a shot in the arm and will help shore up its sagging confidence. The party has been facing internal squabbles with some of its members joining the Congress. They had accused the Central leadership of not taking adequate interest in the party affairs in the state and going into the elections 'unprepared'. It should be noted that all of AAP candidates who had contested the Lok Sabha polls in 2014 had lost their deposit.
Party spokesperson Harshil Nayak rubbished such talks. "All the seats for which we have announced a candidate are important to us. We are fighting to bring in clean politics in the state and every seat matters. All parties have seats where they have an advantage," said Nayak.
PARTY TO HAVE MANIFESTO FOR EACH SEAT
The AAP has decided to have a separate manifesto for each seat. “Given that we are not contesting on all seats, it does not make sense to have a state manifesto. Moreover, ours is a decentralised way of working and so our manifesto will reflect the aspirations of the people of each seat,” said Harshil Nayak, spokesperson for the party in Gujarat.
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