The Aam Aadmi Party, an emerging party founded by Arvind Kejrewal, was started as a movement against corruption. Although a new party, AAP has announced its plans to contest 70 seats in the upcoming Delhi elections.
According to members, the top of the AAP agenda is to enact Anna Hazare’s Janlokpal Bill. The AAP also focuses on the concept of “swaraj”, transparency of political parties, electoral reforms such as right to reject, right to recall, and a good public education and health system.
AAP’s vision is not only gaining a huge response from people staying in India but is also getting tremendous support from Indians abroad.
AAP Australia is one of the many NRI chapters of AAP across the world. The AAP-Australia chapter has adopted Arvind Kejriwal’s constituency “New Delhi” and is committed to raise funds, which will be spent on the election campaign. To date, they have raised around Rs 11 lakh from Australia, and donations are increasing, say members.
AAP members from Australia have also launched a “Call Citizen Campaign”, where NRIs are making calls to voters in India, and spreading the vision of AAP and encouraging them to vote for change.
“We are doing so many things to make people aware of this change, which will come in the form of AAP. It is time for some other party to come into power in India. As a part of it, an awareness and donation campaign was organised by AAP-NSW team during the Deepavali fair at Sydney Olympic Park. The campaign was organised by a group of volunteers who distributed AAP flyers and explained the vision of the party to people interested. We received an overwhelming response as thousands of people poured in to learn about the party policies,” says Sumit Sahni, AAP NSW Team.
“More than 350 people showed their support by signing the support sheet which will be sent to Delhi. Around 80 people signed up to join AAP NSW as volunteers. People also showed support by donating for Party funds. A total of $686 was collected from 32 supporters (Indian passport holders only). AAP NSW team was really happy with the response, and found it really encouraging to go ahead with more strength and enthusiasm,” he added.
“We are very excited with the response. We have formed a group of enthusiastic supporters who care for their motherland from miles away. I am going to India with my wife to vote for change. Iss baar chalegi jhadu (this time the broom will do well),” says Sumit, referring to the broom, which is AAP’s election symbol “to clean politics”.
“Response to the awareness campaigns is overwhelming. People are very excited to know about this new change. They can see a hope of better India in AAP,” says Deepak Pooniyan, a member of the AAP NSW team.
Brad Mishra, AAP Australia Convener, says many other campaigns are being organized in Australia to assist the team in Delhi. “We are soon going to launch a campaign to raise funds for housing and food for ground volunteers in Delhi.
Many AAP Australia members, including me are going to join the Delhi ground team in the next few weeks,” says Brad.
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