JOIN USDelhi Assembly Election Result 2020: Arvind Kejriwal’s win timely shot in the arm for Punjab AAP
The landslide victory of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in the Delhi Assembly election has provided much needed impetus to the beleaguered AAP in neighbouring Punjab - the only state outside Delhi where Arvind Kejriwal’s party has sizable footprint.
Over the years, the Punjab AAP has lost both track and traction. But the party’s sweeping victory in Delhi has galvanised the party cadre in the direction of a conceivable victory in the next assembly election in the border state, said AAP MLA and leader of the Opposition Aman Arora.
The Congress-ruled Punjab had relegated the formidable Akali Dal-BJP combine to the third spot in the 2017 assembly election. The AAP won 20 seats in the last assembly election, more than the SAD-BJP combine, earning the party the status of the principal Opposition party in the Punjab assembly. It is the only state from where the AAP leaders have won the Lok Sabha seats in elections - first in 20114 with 4 MPs and now with one MP Bhagwant Mann winning a seat in the 2019 general elections.
Even as the AAP managed groundswell in Punjab, the party will need to rightly strategize and get its act together to dislodge the ruing dispensation. AAP Punjab has been marred with a series of defections, dissent and severe internal strife. Outside of Delhi, Kejriwal’s party has experimented with electoral contests in assemble polls in the states of Haryana and Punjab. In Haryana, the party remained non-existential and drew a complete blank in the recently concluded assembly elections. But hope lies for the party in Punjab, given the altering political discourse and changing political landscape.
The AAP is in talks with disgruntled former Punjab cabinet minister Navjot Singh Sidhu to get him in the party fold, perhaps to be the face of the AAP in Punjab, it is learnt. If this fructifies, the AAP will be back in the reckoning given the mass support base Sidhu commands in Punjab. A rebel outfit of the SAD comprising some noteworthy leaders is making inroads in Punjab. Elections will throw up the possibility of the AAP allying with other formidable outfits to leverage its strengths.
“We will welcome Navjot Sidhu in the AAP,” Arora said today.