Our party would not have given entry to a leader like Harak Singh Rawat
Monday, 31 January 2022 | PNS | Dehradun
The chief ministerial face of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Colonel (Retd) Ajay Kothiyal is busy campaigning for himself in Gangotri in Uttarkashi district and other candidates of the party. The CM candidate of AAP who is a highly decorated soldier with an impressive record of social service interacted with Gajendra Singh Negi of The Pioneer to share his views on various issues and his party’s plans in detail.
What prompted you to contest from Gangotri assembly constituency?
I have been well versed with the villages of Gangotri before my entry into politics. Uttarkashi was my first posting in Uttarakhand and I served in the Nehru Institute of Mountaineering (NIM) here. When we started the Youth Foundation, the villagers of Kava village located in Asi Ganga valley donated 70 Nali land for it. My passion for trekking and adventure made me familiar with the terrain and the locals here. In fact I had visited all the villages of the area before I entered politics. During the pandemic I was with the people here and recently we started the ration campaign from here.
What response are you eliciting during the campaign?
Both my party and I are getting very good public response. I am pleasantly surprised by the active involvement of women in my campaign. We are also getting very good support from students, ex-servicemen, business community and all sections of society. For Uttarkashi we have presented a technical plan for solving the parking problem. Similarly we will soon come out with a garbage disposal plan for the town.
Uttarakhand has traditionally been a politically bipolar state with power changing hands between Congress and BJP. In such a situation where do you find AAP?
This bipolar politics is in fact helping AAP to make inroads into the state. People have realised that both BJP and Congress have done nothing for them. One can see how brazenly the top leaders of these parties leave one party and join another. All this has created anguish among the people and they are accepting AAP as an alternative.
You are talking about being an alternative but in many districts the AAP still has no organisational set up.
It is true that both the established parties have organisational set up but we have adopted a different model of organisation. We have divided every assembly constituency into six to eight Mandals and every Mandal has four to six sectors and in every sector there are four to six booths.
All the political parties are trying to woo the ex-servicemen voters. You were in the Army. What is your plan for them?
A soldier usually retires before he attains 35 years of age. Many of such soldiers had served in wings like education, nursing and engineering of Armed forces. In Uttarakhand we can use their skills, experience and enthusiasm for the development of the state. In view of my record in the army, my contribution in training the youth for the army, the ex-servicemen and the families of serving soldiers are showing faith in me.
AAP is on a spree of announcing sops like free power, unemployment allowance and monthly grant to all the women of Uttarakhand. The economy of the state is in shambles. How would your government manage these freebies?
The annual budget of Delhi was about Rs 35,000 crore five to six years ago and now it has increased to Rs 58,000 crore. In Uttarakhand if we are able to reduce corruption we will be able to save 20 per cent of our annual budget. In this way we can save about Rs 11,000 crore annually which is enough to cater all the social security measures announced by us. Apart from this we will concentrate on resource generation by focusing on tourism and other activities. This government has surrendered valuable assets of the state to Uttar Pradesh. We will take back these assets.
The AAP has also given tickets to such people who had defected to the party after denial of tickets from BJP and Congress. How would you justify this?
You will notice that all such people who came to our party had good character. We have focussed on the character and would not have given entry to a leader like Harak Singh Rawat in our party.
In case of a hung assembly AAP would support which party in government formation?
We will form a government on our own in Uttarakhand and will take support of independents if required. We will not support the BJP and Congress in forming the government in any case.
