The AAP, which had nearly finished its preparations to form its government in Punjab, managed to secure only 20 seats out of the 117 Assembly constituencies in the state. In Goa, which has 40 Assembly seats, the AAP was at least hoping to emerge as the second largest party, if not form government, but the scenario changed dramatically as the results for the state kept coming in. The AAP failed to secure even a single seat in Goa.
However, the AAP managed to secure a significant 24% of the vote share in Punjab, whereas in Goa, they managed to get just about 6% of the total vote share, coming at the number four position.
So sure were AAP leaders of their victory, especially in Punjab, that they had started celebrations since early Saturday morning outside the CM’s house on Delhi’s Flag Staff Road which was decorated with tricolour balloons accompanied by loud music. However, as the news of the AAP’s poor performance poured in from both Punjab and Goa, the mood at the venue changed.
With the results not going in AAP’s favour, the top AAP leadership held a high-level meeting at Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s residence on Saturday afternoon. The senior AAP leadership, which had been camping at Kejriwal’s residence since early Saturday morning, discussed what went wrong for the party in Punjab and Goa.
“The results have been very disappointing for us; we were expecting much better results for Punjab at least, if not Goa. However, there were various factors that worked against us as per our preliminary analysis. One of the major factors that perhaps played against our party is that the xentral leadership of the party was not being informed of the ground reality by party leaders in the states. They were just analysing trends on the basis of the crowds that came to our rallies. We are also a new party unaware of the political dynamics of the two states,” a senior AAP leader told The Sunday Guardian.
“Arvind Kejriwal and his core group managing the election were being guided and advised by a section of people who had little understanding about the ground realities of these states. In Goa, AAP had promised to clean up the state’s ‘sin city’ image and this seems to have not gone down well with the people of Goa as the state thrives on tourism. In Punjab, a radical factor in which the AAP had co-opted Khalistani elements into the party also did not seem to have appealed to young Sikh voters. A lot of introspection needs to be done following the election results,” the AAP leader said.As per the AAP’s scheme of things, the party had been planning to make inroads into Gujarat, Rajasthan Madhya Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh after forming their government in Punjab.Kejriwal, who did over 100 rallies in Punjab, was desperate to win Punjab due to the fact that it is a full state unlike Delhi and he would have got the opportunity to “showcase his ability to govern”. In Punjab, he was hoping for a repeat of Delhi, where AAP had swept the Assembly elections in 2015, but that did not happen.
AAP spokesperson Raghav Chadha told this newspaper that the AAP was disappointed with the Punjab results as they had expected much better results. “We did not expect this kind of result from Punjab; we were obviously expecting much more than this. However, we are a new party and new to politics and even with such little experience, we have done fairly well. This result does not stop us from growing as a party. We will continue to fight against corruption and communal forces in the coming days. This was an election to learn a lot from; we will introspect in the coming days where we have gone wrong.”