Gujarat election results: AAP plays spoiler, claims win with national status | Latest News India - Hindustan Times
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Gujarat election results: AAP plays spoiler, claims win with national status

ByMaulik Pathak and Dipankar Ghose
Dec 09, 2022 04:05 PM IST

Gujarat election results: For over three months, the biggest names in the AAP — from party chief Arvind Kejriwal to Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann and Rajya Sabha MP Raghav Chadha — made Gujarat their second home.

AHMEDABAD/NEW DELHI For over three months, the biggest names in the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) — from party chief Arvind Kejriwal to Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann and Rajya Sabha MP Raghav Chadha — made Gujarat their second home.

AAP convener Arvind Kejriwal during a roadshow in Gujarat’s Rajkot. (PTI) PREMIUM
AAP convener Arvind Kejriwal during a roadshow in Gujarat’s Rajkot. (PTI)

Over these months, they erected a fledgling but enthusiastic state leadership, picking former television journalist Isudan Gadhvi as their chief ministerial candidate and backing former PAAS leader Gopal Italia and Alpesh Katheriya, for instance, with grand rallies and road shows. In the run-up to counting day, the AAP message was clear: despite the challenges of fighting in a large state ruled by a political hegemon for over two decades, they were in it to win it, or at the very least establish themselves as a major player.

Come counting day on Thursday, however, the party fell well short of those lofty promises, winning just five seats, securing 13% of the vote, and failing to beat the Congress to second place. The silver lining though is that the AAP is now set to be India’s ninth national party. And the party was a successful spoiler (in the electoral context, a party that ruins the chances of the runner-up by winning more seats than the winning margin). Overall, AAP played spoiler in 30 seats, 22 for the Congress and 8 for the BJP.

It is set to become a national party by being recognised as a national party in four states -- Delhi and Punjab, where it is in power, and Goa and now Gujarat by virtue of winning at least 6% votes and at least two assembly seats.

“I am thankful to the people of Gujarat for helping us attain the status of national party. Very few parties enjoy the status and now we are one of them. Ours is only a 10-year-old party,” Kejriwal said in a video message.

But December 8 was meant to be a larger launchpad for the party’s national ambitions amid hopes that it would position itself as the only force capable of taking on the BJP juggernaut nationally. AAP positioned Kejriwal against Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and the promises it made were similar to those that had worked elsewhere — from 300 units of free electricity to a sharp focus on health and education.

After the outcome, a senior AAP leader, who did not wish to be named, admitted, “We will have to rethink our strategy for Gujarat. We were aware of Prime Minister Modi’s popularity, but there was an opposition cache of 40% votes that we wanted to capture significantly. The bigger picture is that we have made an entry in Gujarat, but there is some disappointment.”

Particularly frustrating for the party is the fact that it drew a blank in areas such as Surat in south Gujarat, where it invested significant time and resources, hoping to capitalise on residual anger among migrants and Patidars, and where it fielded its strongest candidates, most notably state party chief Gopal Italia, Alpesh Katheriya and Dharmik Malviya, all former PAAS leaders. The BJP swept Surat yet again, winning all 12 seats in the city. AAP chief ministerial candidate Gadhvi lost Khambalia.

Broadly, even the seats where the AAP has done well do not show a clear pattern . Its five winning seats are a scheduled caste seat of Bhiloda in Sabarkantha, a scheduled tribe reserved seat in Narmada district in Dediapada, and seats in Bhavnagar(Gariadhar), Jamnagar (Jamjodhpur), and Junagadh (Visavadhar). In terms of vote share, the party won a significant chunk of its overall 12.7% in Saurashtra and south Gujarat.

Political experts said the results exposed the AAP’s lack of a grassroots network in Gujarat, and the absence of a sustained party building exercise, compared to the entrenched networks of the BJP and the Congress. “Unlike the BJP, the AAP does not have a strong cadre at the grassroots level in Gujarat. Their presence was mainly on social media. Also, they failed to effectively raise their issues against the ruling BJP,” analyst Ghanshyam Shah said.

Through the campaign, the AAP sought to drive the message that a vote for the Congress was a waste, with Kejriwal repeatedly making the prediction that his party would supplant the Congress, which would win less than 10 seats. Eventually, the Congress won more than double the AAP’s vote share, with 17 seats to the AAP’s 5.

“In Kejriwal’s speeches, he targeted the Congress, alleging that the Congress has been decimated in Gujarat. It showed that the main target of the AAP was the Congress,” said Shah.

The AAP was thus left to seek comfort in the fact that it is now set to become a national party, India’s ninth, pending a notification by the Election Commission of India. To earn this status, the party needed to win 6% of the vote and at least two seats across four states, with Gujarat the key after Delhi, Punjab and Goa.

Delhi deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia tweeted, “ Gujarat voters are making the AAP a national party. The politics of health and education is being recognised at the national level for the first time. Congratulations to the entire country.”

That could be both a silver lining and a wooden spoon.

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