BJP's Amit Malviya takes a dig at Kejriwal's plan of contesting 2022 UP Assembly polls

BJP has taken a swipe at Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal over his announcement that his party will contest the 2022 assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh. The saffron party's national in-charge of IT Amit Malviya expressed his amusement over the announcement by stating that AAP has been contesting assembly elections in other States only to lose the deposit on every seat.

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Kejriwal makes announcement

Announcing his party's entry in Uttar Pradesh, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Tuesday said that the Aam Aadmi Party will contest the assembly elections in 2022. AAP had already begun its expansion in Uttar Pradesh, appointing its party leader Sanjay Singh as the chief of its state wing. Earlier, in August, the party had appointed Abhinav Rai as co-in-charge of the party's Uttar Pradesh unit, Rajya Sabha member Sanjay Singh had announced.

According to reports, AAP is said to be gearing up for contesting the Zila Panchayat elections in Uttar Pradesh, ahead of the Assembly polls. The party in August had also announced that it will contest the 2022 Uttarakhand Assembly election and has placed its leader Dinesh Mohaniya in the state to design the campaign. However, the party has failed to strengthen its footprints in Punjab and Haryana. Moreover, Kejriwal during the 2014 Lok Sabha Elections, had unsuccessfully contested in UP's Varanasi against then BJP's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi.

However, the party is riding high on its massive victory in Delhi assembly polls where the party won 63 seats out of 70 leaving seven seats for the BJP. This was the second term when AAP won decisively against BJP. In 2015 as well, the party registered a landslide victory by winning 67 out of the 70 seats. Also, it has managed to make small progress in Goa by winning one out of 49 seats at Goa Zilla Parishad polls in December 2020.

In the politically significant state of Uttar Pradesh, the BJP in 2017 won the assembly elections by bagging three fourth majority of 325 of the 403 seats and emerged as the single largest party against the regional parties such as the SP and the BSP and also against the Congress, despite not having a chief ministerial face for the saffron party. It remains pertinent to be seen if AAP can make inroads in UP which has become a bastion of PM Modi led BJP.

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