Mumbai, Aug 6 (Agency) The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is considering to contest 36 seats in Mumbai during the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly polls without any alliance with the INDI bloc of Opposition parties, a party leader said on Tuesday. Elections to pick a new 288-member Maharashtra Assembly, including 36 seats in Mumbai, are likely to be held in October. The Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) comprising Congress, Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena (UBT) and Sharad Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (SP), which are the three big INDI bloc players, however, has not yet reacted to the speculation over AAP’s proposed decision to fight the elections on its own.The decision of the AAP to contest the 36 seats of Mumbai was announced by AAP national executive member and Mumbai President Preeti Sharma-Menon and AAP Mumbai Working President Ruben Mascarenhas. “The AAP will contest all 36 seats in Mumbai. In the rest of Maharashtra, our colleagues and volunteers are galvanized and preparations are on in full swing.
The AAP is a national party. Under the visionary leadership of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, a party that emerged from a people’s movement is today in power in Delhi and Punjab. We have MLAs in Goa and Gujarat and a significant number of MPs in Parliament,” Sharma-Menon said. The AAP Mumbai leadership also lashed out at the BJP-led Maha Yuti (National Democratic Alliance) dispensation in Maharashtra. “Unemployment and inflation have broken the back of the Aam Aadmi. Agrarian distress and related farmer suicides continue unabated. Once the most industrialized state in India, Maharashtra is no longer the leader in terms of GDP,” she said. “Taxpayers’ money is being used as bank guarantees for private cooperatives. Socially disadvantaged groups and the marginalized sections of society are increasingly being subjected to violence and discrimination. The government is non-serious about Maratha reservation and is trying to divide society, despite Jarange Patil’s mass movement. Organized crime is spiralling out of control with anti-social elements acting with impunity and under political patronage,” she said.