Angry middle-aged men form 88% of AAP ticket-seekers

NEW DELHI: The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) appears to attract educated middle-aged men if snap trends are anything to go by. In a mirror of its top leadership, the average AAP ticket aspirant is a male graduate between 40 and 50 years of age. Top AAP leaders like Arvind Kejriwal, Yogendra Yadav, Sanjay Singh and Kumar Vishwas are in the forties with strong educational backgrounds.

According to initial trends, 21.3% of the applicants seeking an AAP ticket are graduates followed by 18.4% who are post-graduates, 15.5% have a law degree, 7.5% hold a management degree while 7.5% have passed Class 12.

An overwhelming number of aspirants (87.9%) are men. The candidates are predominantly between 40-50 years of age. About 174 applications have been analyzed so far though applications have been pouring in. Just Delhi has received over 1,000 applications for seven seats.

In contrast, data analyzed by Association for Democratic Reforms reveals that 43% or 3,373 candidates who contested Lok Sabha polls in 2009 were graduates and above. However, only 7% or 524 candidates were women. ADR had analyzed self-sworn affidavits submitted by 7,774 candidates contesting the election.

The party has already put out the list of candidates in 63 constituencies seeking feedback from the public. The first list for the Lok Sabha is likely to be out by February 12.