The decline and demise of Aam Aadmi Party in Punjab
Friday, 26/04/2019
https://www.brightpunjabexpress.com/index.php/2019/04/26/the-decline-and-demise-of-aam-aadmi-party-in-punjab/
CHANDIGARH : The third front has never lived for long in Punjab. But the fact that Aam Aadmi Party will come with such a short expiry date came as a surprise. After surprising the whole world by winning four parliamentary seats from Punjab in 2014 General Elections, the party followed by an impressive performance in 2017 assembly elections when it became the principal opposition party in the Punjab Vidhan Sabha and the AAP had never seen, till then, a phenomenal and exponential growth in the state.
Within less than five years, the AAP is staring at an ungraceful demise. It was fragmented in Punjab Vidhan Sabha within a year after the elections, with one group led by Sukhpal Singh Khaira parting ways with the main party. Similarly, two of its four MPs rebelled against the party.
Today, Nazar Singh Manshahia, one of the prominent faces of the party and sitting MLA from Mansa resigned from the primary membership of the party and joined the Congress. This may prove to be the proverbial last nail in the AAP coffin.
While five years ago it won four of the 13 parliamentary seats in Punjab and was in a winning position in about three more, today the AAP is not even in a position to contest. Finding the candidates to fight was the most difficult job for the party in strong contrast to 2014 and 2017 when people rushed and vied for an AAP ticket.
The only exception for the party in Punjab is its state head, Bhagwant Mann who is trying his luck once again from Sangrur. He is caught in a triangular contest with Kewal Singh Dhillon of the Congress and Parminder Singh Dhindsa of the Shiromani Akali Dal-BJP. It may not be an easy task for Mann to retain his constituency this time. But in a triangular contest he still stands a chance and the only hope for the AAP in Punjab, where just two years ago the party aspired to form the government.
Rest of Punjab has already written the epitaph for the AAP. Constituencies like Ludhiana and Anandpur Sahab where the party polled around three lakh votes each in 2014 General Elections may not let the AAP candidates to safeguard their security this time. The party has been completely pushed to the margins, rather beyond margins. Similarly in Patiala, Fatehgarh Sahab and Faridkot, the three other seats party won last time, the AAP may not be able to even save the security deposit.
The decline and eventual demise of AAP is not surprising. AAP followed the earlier pattern of the ‘third front’ in Punjab, which comes with a very short expiry date. The AAP, unlike in Delhi, where it represented middle class aspirations and articulated the anger against the established parties and the systems, started flirting with the radical elements. It completely antagonized and alienated the mainstream voters. The AAP committed a fatal mistake by assuming that common Sikh was inclined towards radical thinking. It learnt the lessons hard way by realizing that the average Sikh has always been away and far from extremist ideology, which the AAP was trying to court and flirt with.
AAP’s flirtations with the radical and extremist elements benefitted the Congress the most as the mainstream Sikhs and Hindus voted together for secular Congress while also rejecting the Akali Dal-BJP alliance, which primarily banks on Sikh and Hindu votes respectively.
For the 2019 General Elections, AAP is not even in a position to swing the balance in favour of or against a particular party. Unlike in 2017 when it massively cut into Akali votes and provided an unprecedented advantage to the Congress, the party is not in any position to influence any outcome. Its vote percentage for sure and certain will not cross the double figure mark this time in Punjab, while in 2014 and 2017 it hovered around 25 percent.
