AAP national convener Arvind Kejriwal.
| Photo Credit: ANI
As the dust settles after the election and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is left smarting from the results, the one question its rank and file will be left with would be — between losing power in Delhi and party chief Arvind Kejriwal’s defeat from New Delhi seat, what hurt more?
For AAP, which has fought elections in other States, including Punjab in 2022, on its chief’s “clean” image and the ‘Delhi model’ of governance, it will be hard to recover from the twin losses.
However, Mr. Kejriwal may have an even bigger problem at hand. The AAP national convener, who was arrested and jailed in connection with the now-withdrawn excise policy 2021-22, walked out on bail in September last year and resigned as the Delhi Chief Minister, stating that he would prove his innocence in “janata ki adaalat [people’s court]”.
He had said he would sit on the CM’s chair only after being re-elected. The “people’s court” has not ruled in his favour, and with the court case unlikely to end soon, the former CM may find it tough to sell his “clean” image. On the setback, a senior party leader said, “We need to think about what went wrong in the campaign and within the party. We still can’t fathom the loss of constituencies like New Delhi and Greater Kailash (Saurabh Bharadwaj’s seat).”
Born out of the India Against Corruption movement in 2012, AAP projected itself as an alternative to the “politics of scams”. In the party’s early days, Mr. Kejriwal would point out “corrupt” politicians while promising graft-free governance. Now, AAP itself may find it difficult to shake off the corruption allegations surrounding it.
Another question Mr. Kejriwal will have to ask himself is whether he can retain his 22 MLAs in Delhi over the next five years.
Unlike in other established parties, where people spend years rising through the ranks to become MLAs or Ministers, many AAP leaders gained those privileges almost overnight. Since many figures associated with the party since its early days have left over the years, Mr. Kejriwal might now find it challenging to retain his senior leaders, some of whom have also been accused in the Delhi excise policy case.
It is true that this is AAP’s worst performance in Delhi, with just 22 out of 70 seats (even lower than the 28 it had secured in its Assembly poll debut in 2013). But one must add that AAP’s obituaries have been written several times before, and Mr. Kejriwal and his team have managed to rebound each time.
The silver lining for AAP is that despite its seats dropping drastically, its vote share is only 2% less than the BJP’s and over 37% more than what the Congress was able to get.
Published – February 09, 2025 02:00 am IST