Chandigarh: The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) swept Punjab Thursday with an idea of change — ‘badlaav’ is the buzz word in the state.
According to leads on the Election Commission of India website (ECI) website as of 1 pm, the party is leading in 91 seats out of 117 in Punjab, which went to the polls on 20 February.
The AAP’s campaign in Punjab was primarily based on Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal’s governance model which stresses on better schools, better healthcare systems, free units of electricity, better roads, empowering women and welfare schemes such as subsidies for farmers.
The campaign was simple — “if we could do this in Delhi, we can do it in other states too”, said senior AAP leader and Delhi cabinet minister Kailash Gahlot.
AAP’s Punjab co-in-charge Raghav Chadha told the press Thursday: “We are aam aadmi (common men). But when aam aadmi rises, the mightiest of thrones shake. Today is an important day in India’s history not only because the AAP is winning in one more state but because it has become a national force. AAP will become Congress’ replacement.”
With Punjab in the bag, the AAP, which has been in power in Delhi since 2015, is now the only non-Congress, non-BJP party to lead the government in more than one state.
The party’s CM candidate is Lok Sabha MP Bhagwant Mann, who contested assembly polls for the first time and, according to initial trends, is leading from his constituency Dhuri.
To be sure, in his poll campaign in Punjab, Kejriwal also included important issues that are specific to Punjab such as putting an end to the drug menace and taking action in sacrilege cases — an issue that generated widespread anger against the Congress government led by former MP Amarinder Singh.
The strategies evidently worked in favour of AAP.
Also read: AAP heads for landslide win in Punjab, Congress & Akali Dal stare at rout
How AAP turned it around
In 2017, the party had invested heavily in the state but managed to win 20 seats — with it emerging as the principal opposition to the Congress. In the next two years, the party witnessed a downslide as its Lok Sabha seats in the state fell from four to one in the 2019 general elections, and nine of its MLAs left the party.
From 2020, AAP started invested heavily in Punjab again and evidently succeeded despite all odds.
The AAP’s campaign was largely based on attacking Captain Amarinder Singh and the party landed into a fix after Singh resigned in September 2021 and the Congress appointed Charanjit Singh Channi, a Dalit leader as the new CM, forcing the AAP to change many of its campaign strategies in the last moment. This development further triggered a contest between Kejriwal and Channi on who is more of an ‘aam aadmi’. The AAP also stressed on corruption allegations against Channi.
The last phase of the campaign witnessed the Congress and the BJP together attacking Kejriwal, alleging him to be a sympathizer of separatist groups — Kejriwal dodged that bullet too strategically, calling himself the “sweetest terrorist” in the world who believes in building schools and hospitals.
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