BJP calls AAP a Congress pawn to counter Narendra Modi

NEW DELHI: The announcement by the AAP that it would contest a large number of seats in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls has left the BJP with mixed feelings. On the one hand, BJP leaders insist that AAP’s appeal does not extend beyond certain pockets, especially Delhi, and on the other there are accusations that AAP is being used as a pawn by the Congress to check BJP prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi.

“In this country, there are more than three dozen political parties and in a democracy everyone is free to contest polls. In this particular context however, I would like to say that the Congress, which already lost in the battlefield is trying to fight trough pawns and proxies like AAP,” BJP vice president Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi told ET.

The party’s leader in Bihar and former deputy CM of the state, Sushil Kumar Modi, had a different take on AAP. “I don’t know about Delhi, but in other parts of the country, AAP does not have credible local leadership. For example, in Patna, the party has set up these booths where they are registering members. Significantly, many of them are from the 1974 JP movement, who are now in their sixties. I don’t know if that is the way to go forward,” he said.