MillenniumPost
Nation

Captain gets 'one last chance', setback for AAP

It could not have been a better gift than this for Captain Amarinder Singh when he cut his 76th birthday cake in style on Saturday. The Congress stalwart not only led the party to a thumping victory in the state, but also successfully managed to evade the flurry of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) which was noticed during the election campaign. 77 seats in 117-seat Punjab Assembly is a whopping number under Captain's leadership. Braving the unfavourable political scenario, the seasoned politician not only fought against the AAP and Modi wave but also kept Congress' poor national image away from denting winning prospects in the state.

In an election campaign where Arvind Kejriwal's AAP was seen toiling hard at the ground since much before any other party in Punjab, Amarinder skilfully tapped the anti-Akali sentiment in Congress' way. Kejriwal and company tried their best in projecting that Badals and Amarinder are hand in glove when AAP made drug menace the biggest issue in Punjab politics. Despite the flutter the AAP created in the state politics, the super strategist Amarinder successfully propagated the idea that Kejriwal does not belong to the state of Punjab and asked the Punjabi voters to give him 'one last chance' to serve the state.

The party, which made its Punjab assembly polls debut, came in second. But the Number 2 position will make the AAP a formidable opposition in the 117-member assembly ruled by the Congress.

Given its penchant to question the status quo, a host of fresh, raring-to-go legislators of the inherently anti-establishment party is expected to give the Congress a tough time.

Punjab was the only state in the country from where the Arvind Kejriwal-led party had won four Lok Sabha seats mopping up a 24.4% vote share by eating into Congress and Shiromani Akali Dal vote banks.

The AAP was tipped to upstage the ruling Akali-BJP alliance and relegate the Congress to the runner-up spot in the assembly polls two-and-a-half years later. The pre-poll hype indicated as much. The results on Saturday didn't back such a view. Prominent leaders such as comedian-politician Bhagwant Mann and Himmat Singh Shergill lost.The loss could be attributed to the AAP losing its touch with the urban Hindu and moderate Sikh voter when a perception grew that the party was hobnobbing with Sikh hardliners.

Kejriwal chose to stay in the house of a former militant during his last leg of campaign. The Maur bomb blast ahead of polling on February 4, which killed five people, including two children, was a grim reminder of the dark decades of militancy that the state went through in the 1980s.

The party's inability to project a credible Jat Sikh face as its candidate for the chief minister's post ahead of the polls dented its fortunes. The voters were unclear of who will head Punjab in case they vote for the AAP. Rival parties had a field day in suggesting that Kejriwal, a Haryanvi Hindu, was himself vying for the top post.
Top contenders such as Mann and Harinder Singh Phoolka campaigned with uncertainty. Also, Kejriwal's inability to pull in popular cricketer-turned-politician Navjot Singh Sidhu, who could have been a big asset for the AAP, has had an impact.

Mann too remained embroiled in controversies as parliamentarian through the election year, after he posted live pictures from inside Parliament on social media.
The fault lines in the party's organisational structure came to the fore after the first signs of dissent. The party was divided on a trust deficit between local AAP leaders and its high command in New Delhi, leading to the emergence of an "outsider-versus-insider" rhetoric. Again, rivals made the most of that.

Starting with the throwing out its state convener Sucha Singh Chhotepur in August, the party went spirally down with mini-mutinies erupting continuously
almost till the elections.

Allegations of corruption and sale of tickets made openly in press conferences by AAP members clipped the party's calling card — honesty
and transparency.
Next Story
Share it