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Arvind Kejriwal, leader of newly formed Aam Aadmi (Common Man) Party, waves towards his supporters during a rally ahead of the state elections in New Delhi, yesterday.
New Delhi: The Aam Aadmi Party yesterday quoted another survey saying they are likely to get 38-50 seats in the Wednesday’s Delhi assembly polls.
“It looks like we are heading for a wave of AAP in the coming elections to be held on December 4,” AAP leader Yogendra Yadav said.
The survey gives Congress eight to 14 seats, BJP 11 to 17 seats, and the seat count for AAP is 38 to 50.
It says AAP is likely to get 36 percent of the vote share, BJP 27 percent and Congress 26 percent.
The survey was done for AAP by CICERO associates, interviewing 1,643 people in 17 assembly areas.
whistle-blower joins
The Aam Aadmi Party got a boost in Maharashtra with Vijay Pandhare, former bureaucrat and whistle-blower in the multi-billion rupees irrigation scam, joining the Arvind Kejriwal-led outfit yesterday.
Pandhare, an acknowledged expert in irrigation, retired from government service on Saturday.
Asked of his plunge into politics, the soft-spoken and mild-mannered Pandhare said: “I had been toying with the idea since nearly a year and took a final decision after my retirement.”
He said he would strive to create awareness about various issues and problems confronting the masses, and suggest ways and means to improve government and governance for the betterment of citizens.
As for campaigning or contesting in the forthcoming elections, Pandhare guardedly said he would make a decision in due course.
After a farewell party by colleagues on Saturday, Pandhare told local reporters that during his three-decade career as a bureaucrat, he had witnessed both the ruling Congress and opposition Bharatiya Janata Party indulging in corrupt activities.
Last year, Pandhare wrote letters to the state government which led to the embarrassing resignation of Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar, whom he had indirectly indicted in the over `200bn irrigation scam. Pawar held the state irrigation portfolio between 1999-2009.
In September last year, following an uproar over the irrigation scam expose, Pandhare resigned from the government, but stayed on after intervention by top state officials.
As a precautionary measure, Pandhare was accorded police security in view of threat perceptions. Pandhare joined the state government in 1980 as a junior engineer and later cleared the Maharashtra Public Service Commission examinations to join the Irrigation Department as executive engineer.
Later in 2011, he came to Nashik as member, Maharashtra Engineering Research Institute, and head of the Maharashtra Engineering Training Institute, where he served till his retirement Saturday.IANS
