AAP works for voters, others for votes: Prithvi Reddy

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) keeps making headlines for its dharnas and attacks on the BJP-led Centre. Amid all this, the real work done by the party for Delhi get overshadowed. According to a recent ABP-C-Voter survey, 67% of the respondents rated the performance of Arvind Kejriwal government's as either 'very good' or 'good'.

Both the Congress and the BJP have been relentless in their attack against AAP government in Delhi. The two national parties have even coined terms as 'drama' and 'dharna politics' to criticise Kejriwal government.

Traditional political parties work for votes, while AAP works for the voters says AAP's Karnataka in-charge Prithvi Reddy. Delhi has tasted good governance and it would be hard for any party to beat us, he says. In this exclusive interview with OneIndia, Reddy discusses a host of issues, which also includes the party's plans in Karnataka.

Opposition parties constantly call Arvind Kejriwal's brand of politics as 'Dharna politics', how do you see AAP's performance in Delhi in the last 3 years?

A recent survey said that 67% of the people are happy with Arvind Kejriwal's work. The difference is that whatever we promised during our election campaign or manifesto, we started implementing from day one. Most governments would do that in last six months or one year. The difference is that while most traditional political parties do things for votes, the AAP does it for the voters. Vote and voters may sound the same, but there is huge difference.

We do not do work for elections, it is about doing the right thing, that is what differentiates us. Unfortunately, we are not being allowed to do work. For instance, they took away ACB because we were breaking the back of the corrupt. They took away ACB saying it was wing of the police and police comes under the central government whereas, Sheila Dikshit had ACB, all the IAS officers (in Delhi) were reporting to her. But now IAS officers are reporting to Modi or LG Anil Baijal.

Initially, Centre tried to poison minds saying this is drama and dharna. But the common man had come out in protest against what they were doing. In the nine days, when Modi government saw people were on our side they sent IAS people back to work. Delhi has tasted good governance, it would be hard for anyone to beat us in Delhi.

We wanted to build 1000 mohalla clinics, they allowed us to build 164. Buildings for 30 have come up, but the staff has not been sanctioned , a lot of them are lying in tatters. So anyone who does good work is bumped off.

Why hasn't Delhi's performance translated to Karnataka?

In TV channels and papers it is all negative stories (about AAP). It is going to take time to break notions that people have. Not only in Karnataka, but everywhere, AAP was a novelty, we did well. We spent Rs 70 crores on advertisements, which every government is allowed to do. There was an issue over it, everyone is allowed to do except the AAP. We see advertisements of KCR so many times in newspapers. Don't take into account these recent elections (in Karnataka), it was very very polarised. There was no narrative, there were no issues. It was as if you are either voting to make Modi win or votint to make lose. No one talks about 164 mohalla clinics (in Delhi). If the officers don't even listen to you how to get the work done.

Do you have plans to fight the civic body polls in Karnataka?

To be honest, as a political party we want to offer people an alternative, but it will not be at any cost. People ask why only 28 seats. One is that we had limited monitory and organisational resources. And more than that, you will find a lot of good people but how many will stick their neck out fight elections. These are the challenges, we have to start at the grass roots. We will contest where ever there good people, we will work from grass root. We are here for the long run. We have already started work for 2020 Bengaluru. We have launched a program called AAP citizen's empowerment. People deserve better do we are here for the long run.