The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) can emerge as a credible political option in Mumbai, if it connects with the masses and raises their issues, feel many Mumbaikars.
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) can emerge as a credible political option in Mumbai, if it connects with the masses and raises their issues, feel many Mumbaikars.
If that happens, in 2017, AAP can be a major political force in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC).
According to political activists, the BMC elections will be the right time and platform for AAP to launch in Mumbai, and, subsequently, in Maharashtra.
"Mumbai is full of dirt, bad roads and other problems. People can't affording to buy flats here, so slums are increasing. Life is quite expensive for the common man. There is huge corruption in India's richest civic body. People are really fed up. If Mumbaikars get a credible and promising political alternative in the form of AAP, it will emerge as a major force," said activists.
Snubbing the BJP on Sunday, Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray congratulated AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal for his spectacular victory in Delhi and said that it is Prime Minister Narendra Modi's defeat.
Reacting to Thackeray's comments, writer Chetan Bhagat tweetted: "Shiv Sena praising AAP. Wonder if they realise AAP will come to Mumbai and do the same to them one day."
Political science professor Surendra Jondhale in Mumbai University told dna that Arvind Kejriwal's AAP model will definitely work in Mumbai and Maharashtra if they sincerely start working on the common man's agenda from today itself.
"There is a huge vacuum of credible and non- communal political force in Mumbai. AAP can fill that vacuum in the next two years. Many volunteers and AAP sympathisers had gone to Delhi for the elections and even significantly contributed to its fund. We have a base here as well. But they just need to find out reliable and credible faces to connect with the people like Kejriwal did in Delhi," said Jondale.
Mumbai and its suburbs are full of middle-class, slum and multi-lingual people like Delhi. "AAP in Mumbai can tap and connect with them. They need to remain relevant like Kejriwal in Delhi. Then, in the coming civic elections, they can make a change," he said.
Meera Sanyal, former banker and senior AAP leader in Mumbai, told dna that they are yet to ponder over bringing the Delhi model to Mumbai.
"At present, we are absorbing the Delhi election victory. Today we are not thinking anything else. Our focus is very much on Delhi only. Let's see in future," she said.
Shama Kulkarni, social activist from Bandra, said that if the BJP does not pull up its socks, then AAP will surely emerge as credible option for Mumbaikars.
"We voted BJP for better governance, not to divide people on caste and religious lines. We do not want their moral policing and ask Indian women to produce minimum 10 children. We do not want ghar vapasi, but we want the vapasi of black money stashed away in foreign banks.
"The BJP should respect minorities and the diversity of India. Whatever promises they had made during the Lok Sabha elections have to be fulfilled. Otherwise, people will sooner or later teach them a lesson as in Delhi," she warned.
AAP may prove itself in Delhi and gradually expand its wings to other cities and states, she said. "We are happy that AAP has got a phenomenal mandate in Delhi and we will also welcome them in Mumbai, if other parties fail," Kulkarni said.
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