AAP will contest all Bengal seats, rules out TMC tie-up

KOLKATA: Though Mamata Banerjee supported AAP in the Delhi election, the party in Bengal on Tuesday ruled out any possibility of tying up with Trinamool in next year's state polls, saying they would contest all 294 seats.

The immediate goal would be to build an organizational set-up first in the state, they told a press conference called in the wake of the party's success in the Delhi polls.

"We will contest all 294 seats in the assembly polls in Bengal. But before that our focus will be to build our organization," AAP activist Alok Chaturvedi, who contested unsuccessfully in the 2014 Lok Sabha election in the North Kolkata seat, said.

Another AAP functionary, Suraj Narayan Singh, who contested the Lok Sabha elections last year from Howrah, said the West Bengal unit had already started the ball rolling, enrolling 70,000 activists in the state through its 'Mission Bistaar' programme.

"We have installed units in almost every district and the membership drive is in progress. We expect that an organisation will be ready in another two to three month's time," he said.

A coordinator from Delhi would be visiting West Bengal soon to supervise the membership drive in the state, he said.

As it is yet to build its organizational network in the state, AAP is not going to fight the upcoming civic polls in the city, he said.