New Delhi: The Election Commission has been urged by an advocate of the Punjab and Haryana high court to grant national party status to Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in view of it acquiring ‘state party’ status in Delhi and Punjab and qualifying to become a state party in Goa and Gujarat on the basis of its performance in the assembly elections held there last year.In a letter to chief election commissioner (CEC) Rajiv Kumar and election commissioners Anup Chandra Pandey and Arun Goel on Saturday, Hemant Kumar demanded that AAP should be granted the status of a national party well before the announcement of the poll schedule to the Karnataka assembly and by-election to the Jalandhar Lok Sabha seat in Punjab. He said the Karnataka polls are due to be announced soon as the term of the assembly ends on May 24.The advocate pointed out that as per the notification issued by the Election Commission of India (ECI) on September 23, 2021, AAP was only a state party in Delhi and Punjab. However, it qualified to become a state party in Goa in March 2022 as it polled more than 6% of the total valid votes polled in the assembly elections and two of its candidates got elected as MLAs.Subsequently, in Gujarat too, he pointed out, AAP qualified to become a state party in December 2022 as it got more than 12% of the total valid votes – twice the minimum required – polled in the assembly polls and five of its candidates were elected as MLAs.Hemant pointed out to the ECI that in August 2022, it had written to the convener of AAP that it was granted recognition as a state party in Goa and that a notification to that effect would be issued in due course. However, the notification was yet to be published in the Gazette of India.He also added that ECI has thus far not issued any order or notification conferring the status of state party on AAP in Gujarat “under Paragraph 6A (i) of Election Symbols (Reservation & Allotment) Order, 1968 for the reasons best known to it”.Once that is done, the party would qualify to become a national party under Paragraph 6B (iii) of Election Symbols (Reservation & Allotment) Order, 1968.The letter also noted that the ECI had granted similar recognition to the National Peoples’ Party (NPP) in June 2019, after it became a state party in Manipur, Meghalaya, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh.