New Delhi: The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has now appeared on the national scene as a serious player. With it's spectacular performance in the Delhi Assembly elections, the Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP has proved that it is a really strong mass movement.
The mainly crowd funded, anti-corruption party has proved the skeptics wrong by decimating the Congress, which had been in power for the past 15 years. The face of the Congress in Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit lost her own seat to Arvind Kejriwal, who made his party's debut with a big bang.
The polling data shows that the AAP has done remarkably well in the traditional Congress strongholds. It has eaten into the Congress votes in a big way.
The AAP has routed the Congress in West, North-West, Outer Delhi and East Delhi and is likley to get over 31 per cent votes in its very first election.
From the beginning, Kejriwal treated the election like a personal battle with Sheila Dikshit. He did not miss even a single opportunity to attack her. His movement against power tariff, water bill, sanitation etc got him a huge following among the lower middle class and lower class people.
Sheila's development agenda was exposed by Kejriwal. He also mobilised the first time voters, middle-class people and all others who were disillusioned with the ruling Congress.
The stunning show shows Arvind Kejriwal's AAP is the real winner in this election. It is true that the AAP has failed to come to power in Delhi. But, it has decimated the Congress and has occupied the main opposition benches in the Delhi Assembly.
For the first time, Delhi is going to have a very strong opposition party in the Assembly. One can imagine what Kejriwal, who is a brilliant orator, can do in the Assembly. The BJP's chief ministerial candidate Dr Harsh Vardhan is a mild mannered person. He may not be able to face the opposition attack led by Kejriwal.
The AAP has achieved one more thing. As its leader Prashant Bhushan says the AAP has spent less than Rs 14 crore on campaign. The entire amount was crowd funded which is another record of sorts in the history of Indian elections.
The AAP campaigning was the most well organiased and low key. They relied heavily on door-to-door campaign instead of typical mega rallies of major parties like the Congress and the BJP.
Instead of talking about big issues concerning the nation, they spoke more about the issues concerning the common people. The shrewd Kejriwal cleverly used these issues to turn the voters against the Congress.
According to some experts, the AAP will now use the victory in Assembly elections to strengthen its position in the Lok Sabha elections due in 2014 April-May.
The broom has been successful in registering its 'sweeping' victory in Delhi.
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