AAP’s popularity on the slide as party continues to lose polls
new delhi — Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is worried. On April 24, the crucially important Delhi Municipality Corporation polls are scheduled to be held. But if the Thursday result of the assembly by-election in Rajouri Garden, in Delhi, is anything to go by, the party is in trouble.
On Thursday, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) handed a crushing defeat to the AAP candidate, far behind even the flailing Congress party. In fact, the AAP candidate Harjeet Singh lost his security deposit, having polled just 10,243 votes in an electorate of 160,000.
Contrast this to the 40,602 votes garnered by the BJP candidate, Manjinder Singh Sirsa.
AAP leaders were quick to explain away the defeat as an expression of the people’s anger over the party’s erstwhile legislator Jarnail Singh, who quit the Rajouri Garden seat at the instance of Arvind Kejriwal to contest the recently concluded Punjab polls.
But the fact remains that there is an increasing disconnect between AAP and the people of Delhi. The AAP had come to power a little over two years ago, but they have been at loggerheads with the Modi government on a series of issues. There have been corruption charges levelled against many of the AAP legislators, which Kejriwal says is “nothing but a witch hunt.” The Delhi chief minister has consistently run into trouble with the BJPled government at the Centre over administrative issues as well.
With Rahul Gandhi’s Congress Party in a state of disarray, Kejriwal has been promoting himself as the only national opposition, though AAP’s vote banks are primarily restricted to Delhi. Its recent performance in elections is not likely to strengthen that claim.
On Thursday, the results of 10 assembly by-elections across various states were also announced. Out of the 10, five seats went to BJP. The Congress won three, and Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress, and a regional party (Jharkhand Mukti Morcha) won one each.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the election results were an endorsement for his developmental politics.
AAP leaders on Friday said they would be analysing the results, and would correct the course. Last week, Kejriwal had charged the authorities supervising the recently concluded Punjab assembly elections with tampering the electronic voting machines to the advantage of the BJP.
No such charge has so far been levelled in the conduct of Rajouri Garden by-poll. But, on Friday, AAP expressed fears that the impending municipal polls would be rigged.
The BJP dismissed the charges, saying Kejriwal was just a bad loser, and that the Delhi Municipal Corporation polls would be the last nail in AAP’s coffin.