The Aam Aadmi Party will field candidates from at least 15 states in the general election later this year.
It will release the first list of candidates by January 20, party leader Yogendra Yadav said on Sunday. But he added that it was too early to settle on a prime ministerial candidate.
Ever since the new party's astonishing showing in the Delhi state election in December, people from various backgrounds have flocked to the party.
Among them is Meera Sanyal, the former chairperson of the Royal Bank of Scotland, India. She said she would join AAP and contest the election from her south Mumbai constituency if the party leadership desired.
“I am impressed with not just the leadership of the AAP but also by the rank and file, which consists of good people with ideals and integrity who are in politics to serve the people — they are people I identified with," she told the Indian Express.
Goan musician Remo Fernandes, whose repertoire includes several songs dealing with social issues, also joined the party last month. Last week, the party opened two offices in the state, one of them in premises in Panaji owned by the musician.
Fernandes told journalists that signing up with AAP doesn't feel like joining a party, but like joining the freedom movement.
“People have been asking me to join politics. The reason why I didn’t join politics was that every party was an embarrassment,” he said on Saturday.
Fernandes and social activist Dr Oscar Rebello joined AAP soon after the party's stunning showing in the recent Delhi assembly election. Both have clarified that they will not be contesting any elections.
But it isn't just high-profile professionals who have joined the party. Since its performance in Delhi, 3.84 lakh people have registered as members on the party website, while tens of thousands have filled out membership forms every day since then, party leader Dilip K Pandey told journalists.
From January 10, AAP will launch a nationwide membership drive called 'Main Bhi Aam Aadmi'.
Mobilisation efforts have started in Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and other states. Mumbai already has 100 offices and there is one in each district of Maharashtra.
AAP's Haryana cadres have high hopes of scoring a victory in the assembly election due in the second half of 2014, especially as the party's senior-most members, Yogendra Yadav and Arvind Kejriwal, hail from the state.
But AAP faces significant challenges in the Lok Sabha election. By widening its network too fast, it runs the risk of collapsing on itself and making crucial mistakes in selecting candidates or deciding on the right approach for each area.
Perhaps in acknowledgment of the challenge it faces, Yogendra Yadav admitted at a press conference that he wished the general election could be postponed by a year so that AAP would have the time to scale up.
As it did in the Delhi election, AAP plans to have a unique manifesto for each constituency. This could well prove too ambitious when it comes to the 300-odd seats it plans to contest.
Besides, the party is still perceived as an urban phenomenon, fuelled by middle-class anger with the corruption of the Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party. AAP is still untested in rural areas.
The party is focusing its efforts on the so-called Bimaru states -- Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh, in which poverty, caste violence, corruption and administrative failure are widespread.
Even though the urban poor of Delhi did support AAP, the concerns of the rural poor are entirely different -- they may be less focused on corruption than on food subsidies, for instance, a matter on which AAP is still to air its views.
In Delhi, AAP effectively garnered support by using striking marketing techniques that harnessed both traditional media and social media. But this strategy is unlikely to work in rural areas, where both internet availability and media penetration is low.
It's also unclear whether AAP's new leaders, several of whom hail from hierarchical corporate backgrounds, will be able to adjust their campaigning style to the party's grassroots approach.
On December 24, the BJP announced that its 2014 slogan would be 'Modi for PM', signalling that its campaign will be based on personality rather than policy, an approach more often seen in US presidential campaigns.
If this election is going to be styled as a battle between Modi and the Congress's Rahul Gandhi, Kejriwal's charisma and gestures such as refusing Z security and the chief ministerial bungalow in Delhi, could play a major role in attracting voters to AAP.
What's clear is that AAP, with its volunteer-based network, publicly-funded campaigning and issue-based politics, has changed the rules of the game. No party has attracted so many members in such a short time.
To these new members, many of whom have had little previous association with politics, AAP is less a party than a movement.
Already, the party's innovative approach has forced its much-larger rivals to copy some of its strategies. For instance. since the start of 2014, AAP has been trying to get 2014 people to make online donations of Rs 2014 to its Lok Sabha election fund.
Similarly, the BJP has appealed to its supporters to make small donations, ranging from Rs 10 to Rs 1000.
'Today, Delhi, tomorrow the nation,' states one of AAP's slogans. That seems a little ambitious. But what is clear is that in only a year, AAP has managed to infuse politics with a sense of possibility -- and to get the established parties to take a leaf out of its book.
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It will release the first list of candidates by January 20, party leader Yogendra Yadav said on Sunday. But he added that it was too early to settle on a prime ministerial candidate.
Ever since the new party's astonishing showing in the Delhi state election in December, people from various backgrounds have flocked to the party.
Among them is Meera Sanyal, the former chairperson of the Royal Bank of Scotland, India. She said she would join AAP and contest the election from her south Mumbai constituency if the party leadership desired.
“I am impressed with not just the leadership of the AAP but also by the rank and file, which consists of good people with ideals and integrity who are in politics to serve the people — they are people I identified with," she told the Indian Express.
Goan musician Remo Fernandes, whose repertoire includes several songs dealing with social issues, also joined the party last month. Last week, the party opened two offices in the state, one of them in premises in Panaji owned by the musician.
Fernandes told journalists that signing up with AAP doesn't feel like joining a party, but like joining the freedom movement.
“People have been asking me to join politics. The reason why I didn’t join politics was that every party was an embarrassment,” he said on Saturday.
Fernandes and social activist Dr Oscar Rebello joined AAP soon after the party's stunning showing in the recent Delhi assembly election. Both have clarified that they will not be contesting any elections.
But it isn't just high-profile professionals who have joined the party. Since its performance in Delhi, 3.84 lakh people have registered as members on the party website, while tens of thousands have filled out membership forms every day since then, party leader Dilip K Pandey told journalists.
From January 10, AAP will launch a nationwide membership drive called 'Main Bhi Aam Aadmi'.
Mobilisation efforts have started in Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and other states. Mumbai already has 100 offices and there is one in each district of Maharashtra.
AAP's Haryana cadres have high hopes of scoring a victory in the assembly election due in the second half of 2014, especially as the party's senior-most members, Yogendra Yadav and Arvind Kejriwal, hail from the state.
But AAP faces significant challenges in the Lok Sabha election. By widening its network too fast, it runs the risk of collapsing on itself and making crucial mistakes in selecting candidates or deciding on the right approach for each area.
Perhaps in acknowledgment of the challenge it faces, Yogendra Yadav admitted at a press conference that he wished the general election could be postponed by a year so that AAP would have the time to scale up.
As it did in the Delhi election, AAP plans to have a unique manifesto for each constituency. This could well prove too ambitious when it comes to the 300-odd seats it plans to contest.
Besides, the party is still perceived as an urban phenomenon, fuelled by middle-class anger with the corruption of the Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party. AAP is still untested in rural areas.
The party is focusing its efforts on the so-called Bimaru states -- Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh, in which poverty, caste violence, corruption and administrative failure are widespread.
Even though the urban poor of Delhi did support AAP, the concerns of the rural poor are entirely different -- they may be less focused on corruption than on food subsidies, for instance, a matter on which AAP is still to air its views.
In Delhi, AAP effectively garnered support by using striking marketing techniques that harnessed both traditional media and social media. But this strategy is unlikely to work in rural areas, where both internet availability and media penetration is low.
It's also unclear whether AAP's new leaders, several of whom hail from hierarchical corporate backgrounds, will be able to adjust their campaigning style to the party's grassroots approach.
On December 24, the BJP announced that its 2014 slogan would be 'Modi for PM', signalling that its campaign will be based on personality rather than policy, an approach more often seen in US presidential campaigns.
If this election is going to be styled as a battle between Modi and the Congress's Rahul Gandhi, Kejriwal's charisma and gestures such as refusing Z security and the chief ministerial bungalow in Delhi, could play a major role in attracting voters to AAP.
What's clear is that AAP, with its volunteer-based network, publicly-funded campaigning and issue-based politics, has changed the rules of the game. No party has attracted so many members in such a short time.
To these new members, many of whom have had little previous association with politics, AAP is less a party than a movement.
Already, the party's innovative approach has forced its much-larger rivals to copy some of its strategies. For instance. since the start of 2014, AAP has been trying to get 2014 people to make online donations of Rs 2014 to its Lok Sabha election fund.
Similarly, the BJP has appealed to its supporters to make small donations, ranging from Rs 10 to Rs 1000.
'Today, Delhi, tomorrow the nation,' states one of AAP's slogans. That seems a little ambitious. But what is clear is that in only a year, AAP has managed to infuse politics with a sense of possibility -- and to get the established parties to take a leaf out of its book.
