Assembly Elections 2017: Kejriwal's national ambition has been dashed, but will AAP learn its lesson?

Is Aam Aadmi Party finally ready for its big debut in national politics? That was the buzz when EVMs were opened on Saturday. But hopes of Kejriwal and his bunch of followers fizzled out soon as the trends for Punjab became clear. 

Forget winning Punjab, Aam Aadmi Party was a poor second in the border state with Captain Amarinder Singh running far ahead with the mandate. AAP and it ally Lok Insaaf Party (LIP) could barely manage 22 out of 107 assembly seats. This is AAP's debut in Punjab assembly. But the party did brilliantly well in Lok Sabha elections in Punjab, winning 4 seats. It was ahead in 33 assembly segments. So compared to 2014, AAP lost 11 seats in 2017. Despite Kejriwal investing a lot of capital in Punjab, the party's campaign failed to sprout wings. The factors which lead to AAP's Punjab disappointment is symptomatic of parties that try to scale up without putting proper organisation into place. 

With Bhagwant Mann getting the limelight, it lead to other MPs openly dissenting against the leadership. Finally, there was an open revolt and senior leader Sucha Singh Chottepur left the party. AAP's strategy was to hope that the party's ground workers will manage to sway voters, utilising the massive anti-incumbency against the SAD-BJP government. But Kejriwal's tactical mistake was failing to empower the Punjab AAP leaders. He tried to became the main face of Punjab by not projecting a CM face and kept ambiguity about possibility of shifting from Delhi to Punjab. AAP's strategy was not based on sound reasoning but rather on the irrational belief that voters will be benevolent enough to give a Delhi-sque mandate, even if they haven't done the required leg-work.

Sadly for AAP, Captain Amarinder Singh is too smart a cookie to not seize the opportunity. He saw a chink in AAP's armour with the party busy infighting.  In admittedly his last assembly election, Amarinder rode his luck buoyed by a strong organisation. For AAP, it was a case of shooting for the stars without getting the ground organisation in place. AAP again repeated the mistake it made in 2014, owing to complacency and dissension in party ranks. An undeniable blot in Kejriwal's leadership accumen. 

The situation in Goa wasn't much different. AAP tried to create an impression, aided by some media outlets, that the party is all set to challenge BJP in the coastal state. It had the ample opportunity too. MGP breaking away from BJP, open revolt of a section of RSS against the Parsekar government and lack of buzz surrounding Congress meant that AAP had the right ingredients to make a dramatic entry in Goa politics. But it frittered out spectacularly, getting a golden duck. The party, with Elvis Gomez as the CM face, almost exclusively focused on getting the Christian vote with sort of an assumption that Hindu voters would be voting for BJP come what may. Finally, Congress, which has a presence in all social strata, managed to fill the vacuum and ended up the winner. Congress didn't get a majority, but it has enough to cobble up a majority with the help of smaller parties and independents. 

AAP supporters may say that the party started from scratch in both the states. It is a significant achievement to become the major opposition in Punjab and get 6% vote in Goa. But the fact that in both the states, the party lost out to Congress which is on a historic low, shows troubling signs for AAP. Till now, AAP has grown at the cost of Congress by usurping its vote-bank. Does it have a game plan for situations where Congress holds steady and there is no attritional vote to bank on? The party needs to take one state at a time, and its developmental work in Delhi can help it increase footprints in other states. An obstructionist policy essentially banking on sensationalism and high media coverage has its limitation and may have limited returns in the long run. People may vote for a rebel once but, at the end of the day, they want an able ruler with a tight leash. For Kejriwal and AAP, March 11 will remain a bitter lesson. It better gets its act together or risk the chance of being reduced to a mere regional party.