Parveen Amanullah never looked so confident in the last one year like she was on Tuesday.
A landslide victory thousands of kilometres away changed the tone of her voice. "The party would not contest the Bihar Assembly election in alliance with any party. We would go alone here. The credit of the win in Delhi goes to all the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leaders who campaigned day in and day out in the interest of the party," Amanullah told The Telegraph.
After Shazia Ilmi quit the party, Amanullah was the only prominent Muslim face with the AAP and she campaigned for the party throughout the election. Amanullah, who was serving as social welfare minister, quit the JDU before the 2014 Lok Sabha elections and joined the AAP.
Daughter of former parliamentarian and diplomat Syed Shahabuddin, Amanullah added: "There is no way to go in alliance with any party - neither the RJD nor the JDU. Everyone knows what they are and the kind of failure in the system visible in the state under their leadership. Now the battle would begin in Bihar after the Delhi results and now the party would concentrate here."
Asked about the strategy of the party for the Assembly polls in Bihar, Amanullah said: "The party would create awareness among the voters in Bihar and our leader Arvind Kejriwal would lead that campaign. As things stands now, the party has not decided on how many seat the AAP would contest but one thing is sure that time has come when people would have zero tolerance on corruption."
Amanullah campaigned in about 25 Assembly constituencies in Delhi, mostly populated with the large number of Muslim voters. She was camping in New Delhi since January 15. She had visited constituencies like Sadar Bazar, Okhla, Seelampur, Babarpur, Kirari, Gandhinagar, Burari among others. She has also campaigned in the BJP chief ministerial candidate Kiran Bedi's constituency Krishna Nagar as well.
Amanullah, who comes from one of the most cultured and respected families in the state, had unsuccessfully contested the 2014 Lok Sabha election from Patna Sahib.
On the other hand, Nitish Kumar parried a question on an alliance with the AAP in the Bihar Assembly elections. "As of now, we are busy in something else. We can talk about such alliances later."
However, he did not mind lauding and praising Kejriwal, saying the AAP has set an example: "I congratulate Kejriwal on this historic win in the Delhli Assembly elections. The result has given message to the nation that there was a change in the mood of the people. I also appreciate the win of the AAP because New Delhi being the capital of the India and also the birth place of Jan Sangh."
Former deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi jabbed at Nitish: "Nobody can hope to replicate AAP by standing with Lalu Prasad."
The AAP leaders in Patna celebrated the Delhi win and organised a victory procession led by Amanullah. They all gathered at Kargil Chowk and distributed sweets among each other playing dhol. The AAP supporters burst crackers and later cleaned up the area with brooms also.