NEW DELHI: April 10, 2023 will be remembered by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) cadre as the day when it gained official recognition as a national party rather than just a Delhi and Punjab-centric party.
Little over 10 years after being formed on 26th November 2012, the conferment of national party status propelled the AAP workers to gather in large numbers at the party headquarter on Tuesday and celebrate the occasion with pomp.
On this occasion, party supremo Arvind Kejriwal addressed the workers and expressed his gratitude to the crores of people across India. The party office was a riot of colours with flowers and balloons giving it a festive look while party members danced to the sounds of drums.
Kejriwal also emphasised the three pillars of AAP’s ideology — kattar deshbhakti ( patriotism), kattar imaandaari (honesty), and insaaniyat (humanity) during his address. Speaking on the arrest of Manish Sisodia and Satyendra Jain, he alleged that anti-national forces want to stop the party from progressing, from building schools and hospitals.
Arvind Kejriwal on this occasion announced the missed call campaign and urged people to join AAP by giving a missed call on a designated number if they want to ‘make India the number one country in the world’. He termed the achievement as “unbelievable, unimaginable and nothing short of magic” and said that it felt like it was just yesterday when the political party was formed.
“In 2012, many people did not even believe that AAP could have even a single MLA anywhere in the country. However today, after just a little over 10 years, AAP has gone on to become a national party,”
Kejriwal said. Kejriwal told the AAP volunteers to be prepared to go to prison if need be and said those scared of it should quit the party. “I will be lucky if every drop of my blood is shed for the country,” Kejriwal said.
He claimed that the AAP had shown others how to win elections honestly and had managed to transform the political landscape. There are 1,300 political parties in the country, of which only six enjoy the status of a national party and just three — the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Congress and now, the AAP — have governments in more than one state, Kejriwal said.