Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has decided to field an Right to Information (RTI) crusader from Jamshedpur in the upcoming Lok Sabha election.

Dinesh Mahto (46), RTI crusader from Chandradih village in Potka block of East Singhbhum, was announced as the AAP candidate in Ranchi on Saturday.

Mahto had tried his luck from Jamshedpur parliamentary constituency in 2014 as an Independent and managed to get a meagre 5,300 votes.

“We have got the approval from our party headquarters in Delhi for Mahto based on his credentials as a whistleblower. We have also proposed names of candidates for Singhbhum, Ranchi and Godda seats. However, we will announce the names only after getting confirmation from our central political affairs committee,” AAP state spokesperson Rajesh Verma said.

In 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the then AAP candidate K.C. Mardi had polled 7,145 votes.

“We felt that the gathbandhan (alliance between Congress, JMM, JVM and RJD) was dilly-dallying on announcing candidate for Jamshedpur, giving advantage to the BJP. This made us step in. We have picked an honest man who has been highlighting corruption issues and we are confident that educated people of Jamshedpur will back him,” said AAP convener Jai Shankar Choudhary.

Dinesh Mahto said he was well aware of the task at hand. “I don’t have manpower or money power to match the BJP. However, I have been raising public interest issues for the last few years. People have already expressed their desire to offer donation to fund my campaign,” said Mahto, who claims to have unearthed scams worth Rs 10 crore and helped get 40 persons arrested across the district in various cases in the last one decade.