New Delhi: With a 12.91 per cent vote share in Gujarat and five assembly seats under its belt, the Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has earned the tag of a state party in the coastal state.
Gujarat is the the fourth state where the AAP got this recognition after Delhi, Punjab and Goa. With this, the AAP is all set to become a national party after a formal nod from the Election Commission of India.
Elections to the 182-member Gujarat assembly were held in two phases on 1 and 5 December.
Results declared Thursday show that the party’s performance has made the AAP a third force in a traditionally bipolar state, which it is likely to use as a launchpad to project itself as a national challenger to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). However, at the same time, experts believe the party is also emerging as “a national spoiler for the Congress”.
Tripura, Rajasthan, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Mizoram, Telangana, Meghalaya, Jammu & Kashmir are slated to go to polls next year.
Although the AAP doesn’t have much presence there, it is likely to use the momentum of Gujarat to try to make forays into these states — especially in Rajasthan, MP, Chhattisgarh and Telangana — which will go to polls in November-December next year.
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National party status
According to the Election Commission, a party is accorded national status if its candidates secure at least six per cent of the votes polled in four states or more, and if it has at least four MPs in the Lok Sabha.
The AAP said it is a matter of pride that the party will be getting the coveted tag. “This would be happening for the first time in the history that a party has become a national party in just 10 years,” senior AAP and Delhi Deputy CM Manish Sisodia said in a statement Wednesday.
Prof. Hari Desai, a senior political analyst, said that the AAP was initially seen as a ‘vote-cutter’ in Gujarat for both the Congress and the BJP depending on the seat and its demography. “Instead of becoming a challenger to Modi, it is now a spoiler for the Congress in the state. In regions like Saurashtra and in some seats in north Gujarat, it also ate into the BJP seats, but Kejriwal has made serious damage to the Congress vote bank in 48 seats,” he said.
Notably, out of the total 48 seats in Saurashtra region, while the AAP won four seats, the BJP secured 39 seats and the Congress four.
This year’s election in Gujarat was a prestige fight for Modi and Shah as BJP’s numbers were falling steadily in every election since 2002.
“BJP won with a majority of 127 seats in 2002. The post-Godhra riots elections scenario was sensitive. But since then, the numbers continued to plummet. In 2007, it was 117 for the BJP and 115 in 2012. In 2017, BJP won 99 seats. The party was facing huge embarrassment,” said Desai.
“Gujarat which has generally seen a fierce Congress-BJP battle and the elections won with a very small margin by either party, has seen a different picture. The AAP has played a role in spoiling the Congress’ electoral fortune,” he added.
Centre for Policy Research (CPR) fellow and political analyst Rahul Verma preferred to call the AAP as “an emerging party at national level”.
“At the moment, it is difficult to say if the AAP is emerging as a national challenger to the BJP or a national spoiler (for the Congress). It is too far-fetched of an assumption, but certainly it will eat into Congress’ vote share in other states as well. I think it’s an emerging party at national level…,” he said.
“But none of this is automatic. It also depends on what kind of politics they (the AAP) do and how they conduct themselves in future.”
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Congress & BJP on AAP’s role
For Congress in Gujarat, the AAP’s challenge has been real. Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee working president Rutvik Makwana agreed that the AAP has harmed the party’s vote bank of the backward groups like tribals and dalits.
“The AAP has played its role in Gujarat which it was supposed to… there could be a harm to the Congress vote bank but not much. The AAP has been working with the principle that it wanted to affect the Congress vote bank and stop it from emerging to power. I don’t think it can be a challenger to the BJP...”
The BJP doesn’t consider the AAP a serious competition, with BJP spokesperson R. P. Singh said the Kejriwal-led party needs another 50 years to reach where the BJP is.
“Their Uttarakhand CM candidate Ajay Kothiyal joined the BJP. Tomorrow, even if some people win, they will also eventually come to the BJP. They are nowhere in the south, west and in the bigger states. The Congress and the AAP work hand in hand — in Himachal, the AAP gave a clean walkover to the Congress, and in Gujarat, the Congress left the battle for the AAP,” he contended.
Another BJP spokesperson Shehzad Poonawalla echoed Singh’s sentiment. “No race is run by looking behind; race is run by looking in the front… We look at how we can strive to win the mandate of every Indian — in that scenario who is second or third or the challenger becomes inconsequential,” he said.
(Edited by Anumeha Saxena)
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