The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has decided to go solo in the Assembly polls next year in the national Capital. AAP's Delhi convener Gopal Rai on Thursday hinted that the ruling party in the city will go solo in next year's Assembly polls in 2025 while stating that his party's alliance with the Congress was only for the Lok Sabha 2024 elections.
After a meeting of party MLAs and senior leaders at Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's residence, Rai said that the party gave full support to the INDIA bloc in the Lok Sabha polls. "The INDIA bloc was only contesting the Lok Sabha polls. Several parties fought elections together and AAP was also a part of it. As of now, there is no alliance for the Delhi Assembly polls," he said.
The AAP-Congress combine drew a blank in the Lok Sabha polls in Delhi, with BJP effecting a clean sweep on all seven parliamentary seats for a record third time. The AAP, in alliance with the Congress, that contested East Delhi, West Delhi, New Delhi and South Delhi seats could not secure a single win. However, its vote share rose to 24.14 per cent as compared to 18.2 per cent in 2019 polls. In 2014, the AAP's vote share was 33.1 per cent in 2014 general elections.
The Congress lost all the seats of North East Delhi, North West Delhi and Chandni Chowk seats. The party secured a vote share of 18.94 per cent which was 22.6 per cent in 2019 elections.
In 2014 polls, the party secured 15.2 per cent vote share.
Talking about the arrest of the AAP Chief, he said, “We have decided that since Kejriwal is still in jail, the AAP will continue its struggle.”
Further he said, “Since there was a Model Code of Conduct (MCC) in place for the last two months, the developmental work in Delhi was halted. We have decided that all the MLAs on Saturday and Sunday will hold a meeting with their party workers in their legislative assemblies and fasten the pace of developmental work. The MLAs will be between the public.”
Two AAP MLAs, including Kondli MLA Kuldeep Kumar and Malviya Nagar MLA Somnath Bharti, were defeated in their respective legislative assembly constituencies. Rai also added that they have decided to hold a meeting of all the party workers on June 13. “We have decided that we will have a meeting of all the AAP workers in Delhi on June 13.
The way the country is fighting against the jailing of Delhi Chief Minister, we will keep fighting against the dictatorship of BJP. On the other hand, due to MCC in place the developmental projects were halted, we will work on fastening its page,” he said.
On the loss of all seven seats of Delhi in Lok Sabha elections, he stated, “There is a trend in Delhi that we have seen that the people vote differently in the Lok Sabha elections and Assembly elections.
The pattern has repeated in this general election and will be repeated in the assembly elections also in 2025. Hence, we are focusing on the developmental projects.”
On his party’s alliance with the Congress in the national capital, he stated that the greatest benefit from this was that the margins of loss have reduced.
“The biggest advantage from fighting with the Congress was that the margin of winning of the BJP candidates were reduced significantly,” he said, adding that the circumstances in which the alliance lost was very different.
Delhi has 70 assembly segments, including 13 SC reserved ones, and seven Lok Sabha constituencies. Each parliamentary segment has 10 assembly seats.
In the recently concluded Lok Sabha polls, the AAP had allied with the Congress to contest the seven Lok Sabha seats in the national capital.
As far as Delhi is concerned, the AAP's vote share in the Lok Sabha elections has increased significantly compared to the 2014 and 2019 elections. Several reports, as a matter of fact, indicate that all constituencies of Delhi where Central government employees resides, have voted heavily in favour of AAP & against the BJP in the recently concluded LS elections. Despite the BJP's strong performance in the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections, they were reduced to just 3 seats in the 2015 assembly elections and 8 in 2020. This time, the AAP's vote share in the Lok Sabha has seen a massive jump. If past trends are any indication, the BJP is poised to be wiped out in the upcoming Delhi Assembly elections.
