The AAP marches on

There has been no political outfit in the history of this country that has grown so rapidly in 10 years by establishing its presence in two states as the Aam Aadmi Party has done, and leaving an imprint on the electoral map of India.
No one would have imagined six months ago that the unassuming AAP would sweep the Punjab Assembly polls. In the process it has ended the political careers of at least three former Chief Ministers and has cast doubts over the future of some other prominent leaders.
The unprecedented victory of Arvind Kejriwal-inspired AAP with Bhagwant Singh Mann as its campaign spearhead, has put a huge question mark on the Congress, which is struggling to keep itself relevant after failing to win in any of the five states. Yes, the expectations from Mann and his team are enormous now and it is to be seen how this inexperienced but totally determined Cabinet fulfils the promises made to the people.
The first six months are very important as they would pave the way for the remaining four and a half years’ tenure of this government and, therefore, the best minds in AAP would have to sit together and chalk out a road map that addresses the major concerns of the people of this border state.
The AAP has also bagged five Rajya Sabha seats and shall be winning in the remaining two which shall fall vacant in June. The party’s opponents have tried to criticise the choice of the five AAP nominees by attaching unsubstantiated motives to the selection of a few candidates. However, it must be kept in mind that it has always been the prerogative of the political party to choose and send to the Rajya Sabha whoever it wishes to nominate.
The Rajya Sabha story is also linked to the success of Raghav Chadha, the young AAP nuts and bolts man, who has been rewarded with a berth to the Council of States. Raghav was elected to the Delhi Assembly from the Rajinder Nagar segment in 2020 and has acted as the main spokesperson of his party for many years now. He is amongst the musted trusted lieutenants of Kejriwal and played a major role as the co-incharge of Punjab in the recent polls. His being sent to the Rajya Sabha implies that hard work never goes waste and that he would be playing an important and bigger role in the affairs of that state.
In Delhi, where the Punjabis ruled over the political scene for several decades, Raghav had made it a point to contest from Rajinder Nagar, a largely Punjabi dominated seat, represented on earlier occasions by stalwarts like Ram Nath Vij and Puran Chand Yogi of the BJP and Ramakant Goswami of the Congress.
During the years when the Punjabis dominated the Delhi electoral arena, leaders such as H.K.L. Bhagat, Amarnath Chawla, Kishor Lal, Vijay Kumar Malhotra, Balraj Khanna, Kidar Nath Sahni, Madan Lal Khurana, Jagdish Tytler and Sheila Dikshit were the most prominent. After that period, there is an emergence of a new generation of leaders and Raghav was perhaps the only prominent Punjabi to have shown considerable promise.
The AAP’s success story is a saga of lot of hard work and good behind the scenes thinking that has been unconventional and novel in many ways. When Kejriwal took on Sheila Dikshit in the electoral battle of 2013, the majority of people did not give him half a chance. But he struck to his guns and not only triumphed, but vanquished the sitting Chief Minister by 26,500 votes from the New Delhi Assembly segment.
Kejriwal’s campaign, in which his deputy Manish Sisodia played a stellar part, was calibrated and well thought through. The AAP secured 28 out of the 70 seats, with the Congress getting eight and the BJP landing as the largest single party with 32 seats. The Congress in order to keep the BJP out, supported Kejriwal, a mistake that led to the grand old party’s virtual extinction from Delhi subsequently. Kejriwal resigned in February 2014 after exposing the Congress, and this led to a situation where six out of the eight Congress MLAs approached the BJP and promised to support its government if Ramvir Singh Bidhuri (now Leader of Opposition in Delhi Assembly) was made the Chief Minister.
The talks went on for many days and Arun Jaitley, who was virtually taking major decisions on behalf of the BJP prevented, a Bidhuri led government from taking over. The next proposal was to have Jagdish Mukhi (now Assam Governor) as the CM, with five Congress legislators supporting the BJP from outside after forming a separate group. This too was shot down for reasons which till today cannot be logically explained.
But politics has its own logic and illogic too and this was one of those things. The opportunity to halt the AAP’s march forward was lost and in the elections that took place in 2015, Kejriwal’s party swept the polls, bagging 67 out of the 70 seats with the Congress failing to make it to the House for the first time. Ever since that juncture, there has been no looking back and the AAP continues to surge ahead.
The next state which the AAP is going to target is Himachal Pradesh that along with Gujarat shall go to polls in December. However, here, it would not be Congress versus AAP but BJP versus AAP with the Congress as a prominent player. Between us.