At a time when the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is making an effort to expand its base beyond Delhi, the apex body of trade federations are determined not invite AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal to its convention, citing the “absence of a national business policy” in the party.
The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) national convention, which will be inaugurated by BJP prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi on Thursday at Delhi’s Siri Fort auditorium, will host delegates from 1,500 trade bodies from across the country. Interestingly, Modi is under attack from Kejriwal for his “ties” with business magnate Mukesh Ambani.
In addition to the two major national parties, BJP and Congress, some regional parties comprise of SP, BSP and JD (U) has been invited to the event as well.
Union Ministers Kapil Sibal and Ghulam Nabi Azad, BJP leaders Arun Jaitley and Murli Manohar Joshi and CPI leader A. B. Bardhan have confirmed their involvement.
AAP leaders, however, will not be present at any of the sessions.
As maintained by CAIT Secretary General Praveen Khandelwal said, “We have invited leaders from the NDA, UPA and Third Front as we want to present our issues to them and see what they have to offer us. We did not invite AAP because we feel they still don’t have a national policy on a lot of issues which concern us. They don’t have any stand on national trade policy and issues like e- commerce, alternate financial mechanism for traders et cetera.”
Khandelwal said, Modi was the first person to respond to the invitation, adding that an invitation has also been sent to Congress vice- president Rahul Gandhi. Rahul is yet to respond to the invite.
The organizers said they also felt AAP still does not have a pan- India presence and the traders from various parts of the country may not be able to associate with the draftee party.
CAIT national president B. C. Bhartia said, “AAP is limited to Delhi as of now, and our traders come from across the country. A trader from Nagpur will not care about what’s happening in the national Capital. Had it been a Delhi issue, we might have considered inviting AAP leaders. But for a national event, it was not important.”
The organizers had tried to meet Kejriwal when he was the Delhi Chief Minister, but no decision was taken on his invitation to the event, said an AAP source.
The cold shoulder by the trader’s body will hit the party, especially when it is trying to go national ahead of the general elections in April- May.
Recently last week, Kejriwal had addressed a CII event in Delhi in an attempt to reach out to the corporate.