AAP plans mega rally in Bhopal on Tuesday; Kejriwal, Mann to attend

The AAP hopes to make a mark in the politics of M.P. that so far has been centred around BJP which has been in power for a dominant part of the last two decades, and the Congress.

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and his Punjab counterpart Bhagwant Mann will on Tuesday address a rally in Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh, where polls are to be held at the end of the year, with the Aam Aadmi Party working hard to mobilise a one-lakh crowd.

The AAP hopes to make a mark in the politics of M.P. that so far has been centred around the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has been in power for a dominant part of the last two decades, and the Congress.

"We are working hard to ensure one lakh people attend our rally in BHEL Dussehra Maidan in Bhopal on Tuesday. After this, we are going to hold such big rallies in all the divisional headquarters in the state," former MP AAP chief Pankaj Singh told PTI.

Mr. Singh said the AAP had made more than five lakh members since a drive was launched for this by the party's organisation general secretary Sandeep Pathak on February 4.

Mr. Pathak, who is considered one of the main architects of the AAP's strategy in Punjab and Gujarat, has toured Bhopal, Indore, Rewa, Gwalior and Jabalpur as part of preparations for the Assembly polls.

The AAP, which recently announced it would contest all 230 Assembly seats in M.P., is buoyed by its performance in the urban local body polls in July-August last year, where it claimed it had garnered 6.3 per cent of the vote share.

It had fielded 1,500 candidates for local body polls and the party managed to win the mayor's post in Singrauli in the state's Vindh region.