New Delhi: The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), the principal opposition party in Punjab, is facing the problem of a weak state leadership to take on the Congress and Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) in the battle for Punjab.
The AAP, which had won 20 seats in the 117 member Punjab Assembly in 2017, has failed to groom leaders who could match the likes of Captain Amarinder Singh and the party’s organizational set-up is also weak in rural Punjab. Except for Bhagwant Mann, there is no visible face of the party in Punjab. Many believe that the announcement by AAP national convener and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal that their chief ministerial candidate for the Assembly elections will be from the Sikh community and a resident of the state, came too late. “Kejriwal is very insecure, he won’t like another strong leader to emerge from AAP and challenge him. How they will manage this contradiction is a million-dollar question,” Bhupinder Singh Brar, political analyst and professor (emeritus) at Punjab University, told The Sunday Guardian.
“AAP has lost a wonderful opportunity in 2017, they would have surely won had Kejriwal not shown the tendency of over centralizing power, it may happen again,” he added. In the last Punjab Assembly elections, the AAP has not declared a chief ministerial candidate. Although many in the rank and file of the party considered Bhagwant Mann as the most popular leader, the party leadership went into the election under the name of Arvind Kejriwal and his Delhi model.
“AAP is discredited now in Punjab; election after election we are seeing a dip in the party’s vote bank. In the 2014 parliamentary election, the party got 24.4% vote share and in the 2017 Assembly election it was 23.8%, while it came down to 7.38% in 2019 Lok Sabha polls,” Sukhpal Singh Khaira, former leader of opposition in the Punjab Assembly, told The Sunday Guardian. Sukhpal Singh Khaira has joined the Indian National Congress (INC) after he was removed as the leader of the Opposition by AAP for questioning the functioning of Arvind Kejriwal.
However, AAP leaders disagree. “No decision is imposed on me by the New Delhi leadership. This time, we are taking all decisions after wider consultation in Punjab. Things will be very different this time,” AAP Punjab chief and Member of Parliament Bhagwant Mann told The Sunday Guardian. He added that the party is fully prepared as the Scheduled Caste, women and ex-servicemen wings of AAP Punjab have been reconstituted and 38 Assembly in-charges have been appointed till now.
The party’s electoral strategy somewhat resonates with the 2017 elections where the campaign was focused on targeting the incumbent government and promising to replicate the “Delhi model” of free health and education.
Many believe that the AAP needs to come up with a bold and visionary manifesto that addresses the grievances of Punjab and attracts the voters as there is a void in Punjab politics as the Congress has failed to fulfill promises and SAD has been discredited.
Merely promising freebies or copying the Congress or SAD manifesto would not serve any meaningful electoral purpose for the party.
Leadership crisis hits AAP’s mission Punjab
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