AAP routed

FROM achieving a remarkable four-seat victory in Punjab on its debut in the 2014 General Election and then becoming the main Opposition party in the Vidhan Sabha after the 2017 Assembly polls with 20 MLAs in its kitty, the Aam Aadmi Party today has sadly squandered the trust that the people reposed in it. Short of scripting its own obituary — a lone contender, Bhagwant Mann, emerged victorious in the 2019 election — AAP has itself to blame for the debacle. 

First, it was unable to keep its flock together as most of its heavyweights chose to break away from the ‘autocratic’ high command and form their own groups. Then, making things worse for party president Arvind Kejriwal was a chink in his armour as he went ally-shopping in Punjab as well as the neighbouring Haryana and Delhi on the eve of the polls. His foul-mouthed cynicism and hypocrisy did not escape the discernible voter. Desperation was writ large as probity in public life and anti-corruption — the main planks on which the AAP was conceived and which led to its meteoric rise — were traded for prospective seats. Its lofty principles, which attracted the masses towards it in hordes initially, were thrown on the roadside as it shamelessly sought to cosy up to the Chautala clan in Haryana; its flip-flop on a tie-up with the Congress over seat-sharing in a bid to remain relevant and hobnobbing with opportunists and just about anybody in Punjab did it in. 

Its vote share in Punjab plunged to 7 per cent from 24 per cent in 2014. Its performance in Delhi bodes ill as the Assembly polls are just eight months away. It will take a lot of imagination for Kejriwal to recover from the massive setback that AAP has suffered in these elections. Not only was his party unable to weather the BJP storm that gobbled up a massive 56.5 per cent of the vote share in Delhi, it also had to settle for an ignominious third spot with a mere 18.1 per cent vote share after the Congress’ 22.5 per cent. AAP will have to introspect hard to rise from the ashes.