The much discussed Aam Aadmi Party seems to be the next big casualty of the elections. This new kid on the block touted to get 100+ seats in the Lok Sabha ended up with a meager 4, all of them to surprisingly real Aam Aadmis. I say this because none of there blockbuster candidates managed to win even a single seat. It created a world record for the becoming the political party with maximum number of candidates(421 out of 432) losing their security deposit by gathering less than 1/6th of the votes in their constituency.
The Aam Admi party needs to be given credit for bringing corruption to the forefront in this elections and in involving the middle-class urban youth in politics. AAP capitalized on the Anna movement and the massive anti-incumbency of the Congress in Delhi while occupying the left of center political space left vacant by the Congress. This was done in the form of agitations against rising electricity bills, supporting the cause of auto drivers, by promising free water and by promising a strong anti-corruption bill. They surprised everyone when they got 28 seats in the Delhi assembly and formed a minority government.
The Aam Aadmi's political journey then started going downhill as soon as Kejriwal resigned in Delhi. They created some serious political blunders which were even visible to political amateurs but were surprisingly never mentioned on national television.
First, the decision to fight on 421 seats in the parliamentary elections. Then, giving tickets to khas aadmis including Ashutosh, Ashish Khaitan, Meera Sanyal, V. Balakrishnan etc. Then, leaving the corruption plank for secularism plank which was the only political space left to fight Modi. In this process they lost a crucial section of there support base in the form of youngsters, middle-class and the upper middle-class.
Political editors who were calling it a close fight in Varanasi ended up falling either in the category of being massively incompetent or having a soft side for AAP. Arvind Kejriwal lost by a whopping 3.7 lakh votes even after the consolidation of Muslim votes. Kumar Vishwas, Meera Sanyal and many others lost their deposits. Conspiracy theorists are free to wonder why they made this political blunder when they were surrounded by so many great thinkers and psephologists.
After the dismal performance they are trying to form a consensus in Delhi again on whether to try and form a government. Although, they got a drubbing in the parliamentary elections, they have a substantial support base in the city. If they hit the right political strokes, they can possibly repeat there strong performance of 2013. Of course this time they don't have the advantage of anti-incumbency of the Congress and will be up against a much stronger enemy in the form of Modi. Also, its being rumored that Kiran Bedi might be the CM candidate for the BJP which will challenge the anti-corruption plank of AAP.
If they do play the secularism card to gather Muslim votes chances of which are high, then they will become a formidable force in Delhi. Muslims will vote for AAP with more confidence this time around because they know that AAP is a better contender against BJP than Congress at the moment. This will relegate Congress to the third place in almost all the Constituencies.
For AAP it seems like the road to victory is long and with many roadblocks. It has taken an enormous toll on its party workers who have fought two back to back elections with little money compared to other heavyweights. The party volunteers deserve most credit for keeping AAP's hopes alive in the political space even though its leaders are trying hard to make this experiment fail.
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