The Aam Aadmi Party, led by Delhi’s chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, performed exceptionally well in its debut performance in the Gujarat assembly elections. AAP, a political party primarily based in Delhi and Punjab, entered the Gujarati political scene much later but achieved over 12 per cent of the vote and approximately five seats. While this result will grant Arvind Kejriwal’s party national party status, the AAP’s existence in Gujarat was at the expense of the Congress.
The debut performance of Arvind Kejriwal and the Aam Aadmi Party at the home state of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah was without a doubt impressive. In general, however, the Aam Aadmi Party has had no impact on the ground. For instance, Isudan Gadhvi and Gopal Italian, two prominent AAP candidates, lost the election. Arvind Kejriwal’s aggressive push for freebies and repeated attacks on the Bharatiya Janata Party were ineffective. Hindus, who are the core voters of the BJP, have not trusted Arvind Kejriwal’s arbitrary claims of being a true Hindu. Similarly, these pre-election ploys have caused Muslims to distrust the Aam Aadmi Party. In the end, Arvind Kejriwal was unable to sway the voters of the Bharatiya Janata Party, but he did succeed in obtaining national party status.
National party status
Obtaining national party status was one of the primary objectives of the Aam Aadmi Party. The achievement of national party status by Arvind Kejriwal’s party, a 10-year-old political organization, is a significant accomplishment.
Since its inception, the Aam Aadmi Party has been strongest in Delhi, then Punjab. In 2020, the Aam Aadmi Party won a historic election in Delhi, followed by a landslide victory in Punjab in 2022. After winning the Punjab assembly election, Delhi’s chief minister and national convener of the Aam Aadmi Party, Arvind Kejriwal, decided to expand the party. Goa was the first stop for the AAP, where the party gained two MLAs. The subsequent objective was to establish a presence in Gujarat. After the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress, the AAP led by Arvind Kejriwal is the only political party with a presence in all four Indian states. Importantly, up governs two important states in the Hindi heartland, one important municipality, and has a legislative presence in Gujarat, the home state of Prime Minister Modi.
A senior AAP official who wished to remain anonymous stated, “It is untrue that AAP only contested the Gujarat election in order to become a national party. It was a strategic decision because Gujarat is a state with enormous national political significance, and if a young party like AAP can enter the political scene in Gujarat, it will be a tremendous accomplishment.”
Presence in Gujarat
Arvind Kejriwal is aware that in order to become the national face of an alternative to the BJP, he must have a platform from which to challenge Prime Minister Modi, despite his control of Punjab and Delhi. The Aam Aadmi Party was well aware that it could not compete with the BJP’s voter base, but its entry into Gujarat politics will send a message to the saffron party that it has a rival. According to BJP sources, the party was sceptical of the Aam Aadmi Party’s entry into Gujarat because Kejriwal is primarily a populist leader with no ideological background. Initially, the Aam Aadmi Party was a centrist political force, but after Kejriwal realized that flirting with liberals did not help him, he shifted towards Hindutava.
The Aam Aadmi Party decided to fight in Gujarat because the Congress Party was rapidly losing support in the state. In this situation, Kejriwal believed he would send a dual message: that he is capable of opposing Narendra Modi’s visit to his state, and that he is the sole alternative to the BJP.
Voter cutter to Congress
The entry of the Aam Aadmi Party and its initial electoral success in Gujarat will have little effect on the BJP’s politics. However, Congress is responsible for the central issue. From the Anna Hazare movement, when Arvind Kejriwal became a politician and founded the AAP, he began his political career by destroying the vote of the Congress party in Delhi. Since Kejriwal’s first election in 2013, the BJP has maintained around 35% of the vote in Delhi. Yesterday, despite losing the election, the saffron party in Delhi maintained its vote share in the MCD elections.
In Gujarat, the Aam Aadmi Party received approximately 13% of the vote, while Congress received approximately 27% of the vote. In the 2017 assembly elections in Gujarat, Congress received 41% of the vote. This indicates that the Aam Aadmi Party has stolen Congress’s votes. The Bharatiya Janata Party’s vote share increased from 49% in 2017 to 53% in this election.
Additionally, the Aam Aadmi Party decimated the Congress vote in Punjab and stole votes from the grand old party in Goa. While the steady decline of the Congress Party as a result of its politics is a fact, if another opposition party takes away their votes in this manner in the name of fighting the BJP, the party’s intentions will be called into question. After the outcome in Gujarat, it would be difficult to refute the Congress’s assertion that AAP is merely a vote-splitting political party.
More expansion
According to sources within the Aam Aadmi Party, Arvind Kejriwal will continue his national expansion spree after his debut performance in Gujarat. The Aam Aadmi Party has begun organizing in states such as Haryana, Rajasthan, Karnataka, and others. Under the condition of anonymity, a senior AAP leader stated, “The Congress party is in decline.” The outcome of the Gujarat assembly election demonstrates that the people are rejecting Congress in favour of the Aam Aadmi Party. People have realized that Arvind Kejriwal is the only one capable of fighting Narendra Modi. We are confident that following this election’s outcome, we will contest elections in many other states, including Karnataka, Rajasthan, Haryana, and others. Our strategy is straightforward: make India number one.”
National alternative is distant dream
The national ambitions of Arvind Kejriwal are being realized. The performance in the Gujarat assembly election is a significant political development, but it also demonstrates that the Aam Aadmi Party can either reduce the vote of the opposition parties, as it did for the Congress and Bharatiya tribal party in Gujarat, or replace them, as it did in Punjab. The Aam Aadmi Party is incapable of competing against the Bharatiya Janata Party. Arvind Kejriwal has been unable to establish the credibility necessary to compete with Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party.
Similarly, there is a high probability that the opposition political parties will not be pleased with the AAP after the results of the Gujarat election. In this election, the Bharatiya Janata Party has led in 12 of Gujarat’s 17 Muslim-populated seats. Historically, the congress party has always won these seats, but after the entry of Arvind Kejriwal and AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi, the Muslim vote was split, and the BJP won these seats. It is crucial to understand what the opposition political parties think of the Aam Aadmi Party. The Bharatiya Janata Party is not immediately threatened by Arvind Kejriwal’s method of politics. If this expansionist trend persists, however, states governed by the opposition will be the first to feel the heat.
The author is a Columnist and Doctoral Research Scholar In Media & Politics. He tweets @sayantan_gh. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent the stand of this publication.
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December 08, 2022 at 05:36PM
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