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    AAP's landslide victory in Delhi: ET examines the party's future prospects in 10 states

    Synopsis

    To bring you a sense of where AAP stands outside Delhi, here is a look at 10 states and examines how close — or far — it is to fighting an election.

    ET Bureau
    Getting carried away is not that hard if you have won 67 of the 70 seats and more than half the votes polled in an election. But the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) knows that feeling — and its bitter aftertaste. A sparkling debut in the 2013 assembly elections emboldened the newbie party to throw its hat into the Lok Sabha ring only months after. The results weren’t pretty: AAP won just four of the 440 seats it contested, and lost its security deposit in 414 seats.

    The euphoria over the Delhi win has barely receded but there are already indications, however tenuous, that AAP is seized of what it ought not to do. The bravado that characterized the party’s demeanour after its 49-day rule in Delhi has thankfully given way to much-needed discretion. Instead of the scattershot approach which it adopted in the Lok Sabha election, AAP now wants to be methodical in its expansion. The Delhi win changes little on the ground in most states; the strategy to build ground-up had begun in June 2014, one of its main objectives being to beef up units across the country.

    According to former banker Meera Sanyal, who contested from Mumbai South in the Lok Sabha polls as an AAP candidate, it is only a question of time before the party becomes a national political alternative, but it will have to first deliver in Delhi. Never mind that some of its prominent faces in the rest of the country think the iron is hot enough. While the party is yet to take a call on which assembly or municipal corporation elections it wants to fight in the next two years, it needs to do what it did so effectively in Delhi: engage with the electorate long before an election through initiatives like ‘Delhi Dialogue’, which Sanyal calls a “game-changer” for the party.

    To bring you a sense of where the party stands outside the capital, ET Magazine takes a look at 10 states (in alphabetical order) and examines how close — or far — AAP is to fighting an election. Plus Bengaluru, whose municipal corporation goes to the polls this year. Read on:

    Assam: Between BJP and the Deep C
    Growfast

      BJP just a substitute for Congress, AAP can be an “alternative”


      Image article boday
      In the run-up to the Delhi polls, Raja Deori spent quality time mobilising voters for AAP in east Delhi. An artist by profession, Deori campaigned door-to-door and helped organise small meetings to garner votes for Manish Sisodia, now deputy chief minister in Arvind Kejriwal’s newly installed Delhi cabinet. Deori is one of the very few AAP faces in Assam. He says he has no idea whether the leadership will have Assam on its radar for future battles, but insists there is a political vacuum in the north-eastern state that goes to polls in 2016; and that the new kid on the block must seize the opportunity. “There is anti-incumbency against Congress, which has ruled the state for 14 years now. The BJP at best can be a substitute, not an alternative. AAP can be the latter,” he says.

      If results of the last Lok Sabha elections and the recently held municipality polls are considered, BJP has an advantage now. The party which clinched seven out of 14 Parliamentary seats in the May 2014 Lok Sabha polls, recently dominated in the civic bodies election by winning 39 of the 74 municipal boards and town committees against just 18 of ruling party Congress. The 126-seat assembly, though, is another ballgame in a state where roughly a third of voters are Muslims. The Parliamentary polls indicated that minority votes too have been migrating from Congress to a third force — All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) which managed to win three Lok Sabha seats, the same as Congress.

      “We all have seen the misrule of Congress and the communal agenda of BJP. So, there is a scope for a new force. I admit AAP has no organisational strength in the state, but grassroots workers are motived after the landslide victory in Delhi,” says Bhaben Handique, joint coordinator of AAP’s Assam unit.

      When Kejriwal the activist visited Doyang in Golaghat district of Assam a few years back, it was Handique who drove him around in his Alto car. And when Kejriwal’s prepaid phone stopped working, it was Handique who provided Kejriwal a mobile phone. Handique is quick to point out that his party is not in a hurry. “In a week, I will be in Delhi carrying all the feedback that we are collecting now. Let the Central leadership take the final call on AAP’s Assam journey,” he says. - Shantanu Nandan Sharma

       
      BENGALURU: Mayor & the Muffler

      AAP has an eye on municipal polls, but first priority is capacity building


      Image article boday
      The campaign of AAP volunteers during the Lok Sabha elections in Bengaluru last year may have not attracted the votes, but their enthusiasm and engagement sure did get them the eyeballs. The astounding win in Delhi now provides an opportunity for the disparate party volunteers to re-group in India’s tech capital, which stands at No. 3 (after Delhi and Mumbai) in terms of raising funds for the party’s national kitty.

      To be sure, AAP has stepped up the pace in Bengaluru, working toward contesting the municipal election to the 198-ward ci ty corporation called Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), which is legally due in two months. There is every chance of the Congress regime led by chief minister Siddaramaiah postponing the municipal polls, but that may well allow AAP to buy some much-needed time to deepen its roots in the city, identify winnable wards and candidates.

      The party is thinking of other novel ideas as well. “We are going to campaign for direct elections for the Bengaluru Mayor’s post. We want to create an environment where we can have better governance in the city,” says V Balakrishnan, a prominent AAP leader and a former director at Infosys [see Delhi Success Opens up Selective Opportunities].

      The party is set to launch Bombat Bengaluru, a clone of AAP’s Delhi Dialogue, which envisions making the Capital a world-class city in five years. Like it did in Delhi, the party plans to hold jan sabhas or street-corner meetings on issues that demand attention.

      On the eve of the Lok Sabha elections last year, the city was witness to several techies and other professionals taking a sabbatical or quitting their jobs to campaign. On the eve of Delhi polls too, by holding such novel events as “selfie with mufflerman” the party cadres raised about Rs 2.5 crore from Bengaluru to help party candidates in Delhi. According to AAP’s Karnataka working committee member Ravi Krishna Reddy, the party is set to kickstart Bombat Bengaluru in about a month.

      “Policy experts, stakeholders and party members will all come together and identify issues that are important for the people. We are going to hold 2-3 jan sabhas a day. As many as 700 such sabhas were conducted in Delhi in the last five months, and they worked for us,” said Reddy, who worked as a techie in the US before returning to Bengaluru to fight the Lok Sabha polls on an AAP ticket.

      Bengaluru-based political analyst Sandeep Shastri is of the view that AAP will have to struggle a great deal if it has any plans of replicating the Delhi success in Bengaluru. “The Delhi victory was a result of hard work, focus on people’s issues and a sustained campaign over a period of time. The opportunity to encash the Delhi success is very much there, but AAP will have to first build its capacity at the ground level which cannot happen overnight.” - KR Balasubramanyam

      BIHAR: No to Opportunism

      There’s a space in a state riddled with caste politics, but AAP may not be ready, not yet

      Chandrabhushan Sharma, convenor of AAP from Jehanabad district of Bihar, doesn’t believe in miracles. But on Tuesday, when news channels flashed the unbelievable 67-seats tally for AAP in the Delhi assembly elections, Sharma, sitting nervously on the edge of his seat, was reluctantly forced to change his belief. “I pinched myself to see if this was a dream,” says an elated Sharma, who distributed sweets amongst his friends, organised a victory march across the district and sounded the bugle for AAP’s grand performance in the impending elections this year. For its part, the AAP core team isn’t in a hurry to rush to the polls, deciding to focus on Delhi and not contest any elections this year. “I think the party will revisit its decision as people are desperately waiting for AAP to contest in Bihar,” reckons Sharma.

      Sharma’s disappointment is not hard to understand. For decades, Bihar has been mired in the quagmire on caste politics, which has taken a heavy toll of the development of the state. While people are now yearning for development and change, AAP’s opportunity is to make most of a dispirited opposition and a divided ruling party which is fighting hard to survive in the state.

      Pankaj Kumar, a political analyst in Patna, says there’s a groundswell of support for AAP but it’s a wise move to not contest this year. “The party infrastructure is missing and it will take some time before it cracks the caste equation,” he says. Bihar definitely needs a new political dispensation, he says. “But Kejriwal has to work hard in Delhi to prove his administrative credentials and only then woo voters in Bihar.” Till then, the state has to contend with Lalu, Nitish and yes, Modi. - Rajiv Singh

       
      Goa: State of Confusion

      Goa is small like Delhi, but that may be the only similarity

      AAP in Goa was a divided house before the Delhi results. Samir Kelekar had left the party to contest the Panaji by-election held on February 13 as an independent, for the seat vacated by Manohar Parrikar. The union defence minister and former chief minister of the state has almost run a proxy election campaign war on behalf of the BJP candidate Siddharth Kunkolienkar.

      AAP Goa was not sure they were ready to contest the polls. On February 12, two days after the Delhi elections results, Kelekar got an endorsement letter from AAP member Somnath Bharti. Kelekar says his future course will be in tandem with the AAP organisation. AAP Goa secretary Valmiki Naik however insists that the endorsement is a personal letter from Bharti and AAP Goa has nothing to do with Kelekar’s victory or defeat at Panjim. Naik says the party is thinking long term in the state. “We want to contest the 2017 assembly elections. We are appointing booth-level coordinators now. Then as we form committees, they will elect members that will form the state committee, through a bottom-up approach.”

      AAP in Goa now has 10,000-plus members and the party polled around 29,000 votes in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls in the two seats, North Goa and South Goa, he says. Both Kelekar and Naik speak about a surge in support since the Delhi election results. As Goa is a small state with 40 assembly seats, they also talk about repeating Delhi. But 2014 numbers suggest there is a long way to go. - Suman Layak

      GUJARAT: Vibrant AAP

      Municipal, panchayat and taluka polls may be an opportunity, if AAP is ready


      Image article boday



      As AAP was busy soaking in the Delhi grand slam on Tuesday, another election result on the same day in another state would have come as yet another shot in the arm. In seven municipal by-polls in Gujarat, BJP was vanquished in five. What would have been more significant for AAP strategists is that three of the wards were won by independents; in a state where an Opposition exists only on paper — BJP bagged all 26 seats up for grabs in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls — Gujarat is an opportunity like few others.

      Elections in 53 municipalities and for Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation are scheduled for October 2015, along with panchayat polls for all districts barring Kheda and Banaskantha. In the same month, 209 talukas will go to the polls. And elections for the Jamnagar, Rajkot, Bhavnagar, Vadodara, Surat and Jamnagar municipal corporations will be held in December 2015. There’s another driver for Kanu Kalsariya, leader of AAP’s Gujarat unit and member of the national executive committee, to take the fight to BJP. “If we emerge as a major force of opposition, we would to a certain extent be able to expose the myth of Gujarat’s development story,” he quips.

      Kalsariya knows a thing or two about BJP, and its Gujarat model of development — he was the party’s threetime MLA and spearheaded an agitation against Nirma’s cement plant in his constituency. He joined farmers in a legal battle to stop the project. This reportedly upset Modi, and eventually led to Kalsariya’s exit from Gujarat BJP. “More and more people of India are realising that somewhere the Gujarat model of growth is a fallacy. There is no reality as it’s of no use for poor and farmers; only industrialists have benefited from the model,” insists Kalsariya.

      Perhaps inevitably Kalsariya let’s on that “we are contemplating to take on BJP in the upcoming municipal elections”. However, he said that a final call is yet to be taken at the top level about whether to fight just one municipal corporation election or all; or whether to participate in the panchayat and taluka elections. For now, the focus is on strategy formation and strengthening the organisational structure. “We are also focused on having constant political programmes to raise issues,” says Harshil Nayak, Gujarat’s AAP party coordinator. Nayak expects the decisions on fighting municipal elections to be taken by AAP’s Political Affairs Committee in 10-15 days.

      One such programme will take place during the upcoming festival of Holi, for which AAP has planned to send at least 10 party members to villages, districts and cities in Gujarat to create awareness and show opposition to the recent land acquisition ordinance pushed through at the Centre. AAP has some 5.5 lakh members in Gujarat, and 22 district committees that cover almost the entire state. Each district has its office bearers, volunteers and social media teams. They’ll be on their toes in the days ahead. - Vishal Dutta

      KERALA: The Buzz is back

      Phones in AAP offices have once again begun ringing

      Sara Joseph, AAP’s state convener, could not have hoped for a better birthday gift — the Delhi victory on February 10. “It has given us the confidence to make a serious attempt to come to power in Kerala. We have even coined the slogan: ‘This time Delhi, Next time Kerala’,” said the writer and activist who is also known as Sara ‘Teacher’ in the state and had contested from Thrissur in the Lok Sabha polls.

      AAP strategists in the Capital may frown on such statements that smack more of irrational exuberance than realism, but then again the exuberance is palpable. “The Delhi result is a mandate for a new brand of politics,” points out Ajit Joy, the AAP candidate in Thiruvananthapuram in the last parliamentary election. “It is a mandate for politics of honesty and transparency. Many good people will feel encouraged to join politics now.” AAP convener in Kollam Aji Chellam lets on that “since yesterday [a day after the election results] our phones have not stopped ringing. People want to find out about the programmes of the state unit of the party”, he said.

      The enthusiasm notwithstanding, party leaders know that it will be difficult to make a dent in the vote bank politics of Left Democratic Front (LDF) and United Democratic Front (UDF). The immediate problem before the party is to sort out organisational issues. Such issues are being addressed under Mission Vistaar, a campaign initiated by AAP’s national executive to communicate with volunteers across the country and reorganise units at various levels. In Kerala, a seven-member state executive and a 14-member state committee have been formed. District committees have come into existence in almost all districts. “The process will go on until we have set up the ward-level committees,” Chellam said.

      One of the problems that AAP is bound to face as it grows relates to cultural aspects, says Sara ‘Teacher’. As the party grows, it is bound to attract people from different parties. “They will come in with values that are entirely different from AAP but will have to condition themselves to be a worker of AAP. For this, we will be holding camps,” she said. Writer and intellectual MN Karassery, who is an invitee to the state executive of the party, reckons the vote banks of the two political fronts in the state are not as strong as in the past. A lot of youngsters in CPI(M) are disappointed with the party, he says, and AAP can occupy that space. - S Sanandakumar

       
      MAHARASHTRA: Ballot from the Ground Up

      Learning from its Delhi victory, AAP is keen on building a strong base in Maharashtra before fighting polls


      Image article boday
      Many thought AAP could replicate its success in the Delhi assembly election of 2013 to an extent at least in Mumbai, if not other parts of Maharashtra, in the 2014 general election. But all of AAP’s six candidates in the city forfeited their security deposit. In fact, AAP lost its deposit in all but 18 of the 432 constituencies it contested nationwide.

      It was not a big surprise then that the party chose not to fight the Maharashtra assembly election last year (it did not fight the polls in Haryana either) and focus instead on Delhi. “We seriously discussed contesting in Maharashtra with our volunteers. But the funds we had were limited so despite a strong volunteer base we, decided to focus on Delhi,” says Anjali Damania, an activist and key face of AAP in the state.

      She says the party has since focused on building its base across the state and that it has volunteers in every one of the state’s 36 districts but Gadchiroli. The party’s stupendous victory in Delhi is sure to spur the state units into action and AAP leaders in Maharashtra will meet in Mumbai on February 22 to decide the party’s roadmap in Maharashtra and the polls it should contest here.

      Elections to municipal corporations in Navi Mumbai and Kalyan-Dombivli are among those to be held this year. But the big one will be the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) election in 2017, which will also see the Pune Municipal Corporation going to the polls.

      This gives the party enough time to strengthen its base in the state. Mayank Gandhi, a member of AAP’s national executive, says the party will have a volunteer for every polling booth of the 227 wards of BMC in the next six months. The BMC has been held by the Shiv Sena-BJP combine for four consecutive terms. AAP might be on familiar terrain since the civic issues it raised in the Delhi assembly election are at the centre of a municipal corporation election.

      Political analyst Surendra Jondhale believes AAP should capitalise on the fact that there is disenchantment among people with the Shiv Sena-BJP rule at the BMC and the Congress and the NCP may not be considered viable alternatives. “The BJP and Shiv Sena will fight independently and there is no doubt AAP will have an advantage if they connect with the masses,” he notes. - G Seetharaman

      ODISHA: Operation Restart

      AAP has to start virtually from scratch in the BJD stronghold

      Two months back, AAP initiated ‘Mission Restart’ in Odisha, making it the sixth state on its priority list. Restart may be an apt word, considering the party lost its deposit in all the seats it contested in the simultaneous general and assembly elections of 2014. “We contested 18 of the 21 parliamentary seats, and 108 assembly seats [of 147]. We got a total of about 1.5 lakh votes each for both elections,” says state convener Dhanada Kanta Mishra.

      The lack of an opposition is glaring in Odisha, where Naveen Patnaik’s BJD came to power for a fourth consecutive term. Congress which once ruled the state has wilted and BJP, once a coalition partner, is also finding it difficult to break Patnaik’s hold over voters. AAP can take solace from the fact that, despite no small effort on BJP’s part, the Modi wave made no dent on Patnaik’s stronghold — BJD MLAs occupy 80% of the assembly seats. BJP is doing its best, highlighting allegations of corruption and mismanagement to ensure the government doesn’t get too comfortable.

      Patnaik though need not fear any “sting and exposes” from AAP. “The Delhi election has shown us that the public is not interest in mudslinging — and particularly if the opposition parties have credibility. If BJP and Congress are failing, it is because they have been too focussed on unsettling BJD,” says Mishra. AAP, which had 80,000 members at one time in Odisha, now counts only 3,000 as active members. The core team includes a Kejriwal look-alike (though he is yet to capitalise on it), activists and professionals. Building a cadre will take a lot more than Facebook updates and What’sApp messages. “We nonetheless are reaching district headquarters. It is taking AAP’s alternative model of development and the idea of swaraj down to the villages that will be a challenge,” says Mishra. - Meera Mohanty

      PUNJAB: Next Battleground

      Delhi win has best chance of a rub-off on this state

      In Fatehgarh Sahib, few know Harinder Singh Khalsa. That’s hugely surprising because Khalsa won the last Lok Sabha election from this constituency by pocketing more than 3.6 lakh votes. Fatehgarh Sahib in Punjab is one of the four seats AAP bagged, the only state where the fledgling party won in an otherwise disastrous Lok Sabha drubbing.

      The victory celebration last May, however, was not as boisterous as the one earlier this week when AAP came back to power in Delhi with a landslide margin. Reason: Punjab is set to be next Delhi. The state, which has seen Shiromani Akali Dal-BJP combine and Congress rule for most of its life, is receptive to a new political ideology. “Delhi win will pave the way for AAP’s victory in Punjab in 2017,” predicts Khalsa, who is known in his constituency as ‘Norway sahib’ due to his six years of political asylum in that country after he resigned as a diplomat in 1984 to protest against Operation Bluestar.

      Khalsa’s confidence is backed by numbers. Consider this: AAP not only emerged as the secondlargest party in Punjab last year, it also stood second in Ludhiana and was at third position in the remaining nine seats. In fact, in terms of votes polled, it was just 2% behind Shiromani Akali Dal. Findings of a post-poll survey conducted by Lokniti-Centre by Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) last May revealed that over 49.1% people agreed that AAP succeeded in raising the issues that really mattered — drugs and unemployment among youth.

      “Kejriwal’s win has injected a new sense of optimism in AAP’s workers and people of Punjab,” says ‘Norway Sahib’, who adds that the move not to contest the civic poll in Punjab is deliberate as it gives the party time to expand its reach and operations for 2017 assembly polls. “The party has learned from its mistakes,” he confesses. “That’s why we did not take the national plunge now.” The equation is simple, on paper: if Kejriwal delivers in Delhi over the next two years, Punjab will be a cakewalk. - Rajiv Singh

       
      RAJASTHAN: Mission 2018

      AAP magic could work in a state with feeble opposition

      It wasn’t just celebrations that kicked off after Delhi was conquered. Also flagged off was Mission 2018, AAP’s apparent launch pad for the 2018 assembly elections. “The local unit of the party has its eye set firmly on the 2018 elections,” says Rajasthan AAP secretary Rakesh Parekh. On being asked why they did not fight in the municipal elections that wrapped up last month Parekh attributed the decision to Delhi polls.

      Party chief strategist Yogendra Yadav said recently that AAP’s next target will be BJP-ruled bastions with weak oppositions. Rajasthan, where BJP won all the 25 seats in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, is one of them. “Rajasthan is a state with only two parties, BJP and Congress. People of Rajasthan need an alternative, a party that can offer cleaner politicians,” says Parekh. That alternative can’t be born overnight. “It will take time for the fledgling party to spread its wings,” says Sudeep Verma, a native of Jaipur. “Do people of Rajasthan want change? That is the big question here. Besides, it will take a long time for the party to understand the root problems of the state — unemployment, power scarcity and lack of development,” he says.

      For the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, AAP had fielded 22 candidates — all of whom lost. Parekh says the party came a cropper to the Modi wave. “But now the wave is gone,” he grins. Since the Lok Sabha polls, Parekh says AAP has expanded the volunteer base in the state and connected with a band of activists with similar ideologies.”As an organisation, we have a team working in every district now with penetration up to the block level in five districts,” he adds. Parekh recognises the challenges. Reaching out to every village in a large state is perhaps the biggest. “Besides, we are short of funds. As a policy, we do not reach out to big corporates and rely on donations from the aam aadmi,” he says. The good news is that AAP has more than three years to prepare for battle. - Prerna Katiyar

      WEST BENGAL: One-way Friendship

      TMC celebrates Delhi win, but AAP keep its distance


      Image article boday
      Trinamool Congress (TMC) may be finding it difficult to hide its glee as BJP took a hiding in Delhi but if it expects AAP’s support in future elections and by-elections, it has another thing coming. “We cannot support TMC. Our fight is against corruption and many of TMC leaders are involved in financial corruptions including the Saradha chit fund scam,” said AAP’s West Bengal coordinator Sanjoy Basu.

      For the time being, AAP’s priority is to beef up the organisation in West Bengal. “We will first try to set up team of volunteers up to the booth level across West Bengal and then think about contesting any election. Right now we don’t have any plan to contest ensuing elections, including that of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) polls and elections to 90 other civic bodies which are likely to take place in April this year,” said Basu. Basu says that after Delhi, Punjab is AAP’s next target. West Bengal can wait. But, despite TMC chief Mamata Banerjee’s congratulations to AAP after the Delhi victory, there may be fewer reasons for sending out good wishes to the Kejriwal-led party in the years ahead. - Tamal Sengupta


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