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AAP tests it's anti-corruption plank in bypolls; bounces back
New Delhi: Four months after a humiliating electoral rout in Delhi, the
Aam Aadmi Party
(
AAP
) bounced back on Monday as it retained both seats in Gujarat and Punjab byelections and improved the victory margin also.
The victory in the
bypolls
is significant as AAP fought on anti-corruption poll plank — considered its "core ideology' and which suffered a jolt after arrest of its top leadership in Delhi liquor case and subsequent defeat in the state assembly elections.
AAP scored a decisive victory in Gujarat's Visvadar assembly byelection where AAP MLA Bhupendrabhai Bhayani had joined the BJP. AAP had fielded former state unit president Gopal Italia, who had lost the assembly election from Katargam in 2022. Italia improved on Bhayani's victory margin of 76,063 and won by 17,554 votes. The party had followed a careful strategy over the last three months. After the Delhi assembly elections, AAP started putting its organisation in place in different states. AAP senior leaders Gopal Rai and Durgesh Pathak were deputed to Gujarat and Manish Sisodia to Punjab for the bypolls.
According to sources, AAP national convenor Arvind Kejriwal had given clear directives that elections would be fought on the party's anti-corruption plank. Speaking to ET, AAP national media coordinator Anurag Dhanda said, 'In Visvadar, there was a lot of anger amongst people against the way BJP poached AAP's sitting MLA. We worked on this message that the government cannot go against the people's wish, which was to vote for AAP in this constituency. It became a people vs government fight here and they voted overwhelmingly for AAP.'
The last time Visvadar voted in favour of BJP was in 2007 assembly elections. 'This seat has always had an anti-BJP sentiment. This helped us but the result has clearly shown that people still believe in AAP,' said Dhanda.
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AAP retained the Ludhiana (West) assembly seat in Punjab also where the party has been in power since 2022. However, the fine print of election management in the constituency is an interesting case study. The post parliamentary election surveys showed that AAP has lost ground in the border state with several MLAs facing anti-incumbency. After Delhi elections, Kejriwal and Sisodia crafted campaigns for Punjab (including anti-drugs campaign, introduction of land pooling policy, promise of a single window clearance system under the new industrial policy and introduction of online government services) to woo the urban voters. The party's candidate Sanjeev Arora won by 10,637 votes – an improvement over the previous margin of 7,512 votes. 'Though there was an impression created post Delhi results by BJP that probably there may be some truth in corruption charges against AAP leaders. But the party stands vindicated after these byelections,' said Dhanda.
