Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal will address a farmers’ rally in Bengaluru on Thursday in a bid to prepare the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) for the assembly election in the state next year. Kejriwal will be in Bengaluru at the invitation of farmer leader Kodihalli Chandrashekar, who heads a faction of the Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha (KRRS), a farmers’ group which is more than four decades old. At the peak of its popularity in the 1990s, KRRS had two MLAs in the state assembly.

The event, according to political watchers, will mark the coming together of AAP and a faction of KRRS, signalling an understanding to fight the forthcoming assembly election together.

The Kodihalli Chandrashekar faction of KRRS is likely to contest the assembly election on the AAP symbol, though both sides have not made a formal announcement yet, said a person privy to the development.

AAP has been highlighting the issues of Bengaluru after the civic body BBMP’s term ended last year and has started taking on the ruling BJP more aggressively.