Birthed By Anna Hazare Andolan 12 Years Ago, Tracing AAP’s Slow Yet Steady Expansion Across India

Last Updated:November 26, 2024, 14:28 IST

The success of AAP and Kejriwal on 28 seats in their first assembly poll in Delhi became more significant in the light of the fact that none of the candidates had a political background and almost all were common people or social activists

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which turns 12 on Tuesday, is slowly spreading its wings across the spectrum of Indian politics, improving its presence across states election after election.

In 2013, just a year after coming into existence, the party 28 seats out of 70 in Delhi. It then went on to sweep the next two assembly polls in the national capital. While in 2015, the AAP won 67 of 70 seats, in 2020, it won 62 seats in the city.

This was the first time that a party other than Congress or BJP managed to form a government in the city. It not just changed the political picture in Delhi but also introduced its citizens to a new gamut of politicians who were their neighbours.

The AAP ended the 15-year rule of the Congress in Delhi, not allowing even one seat to the Grand Old Party in 2015 and 2020. It also earned the national party status in 2023 after registering a presence in five states/Union Territories in India. Apart from governments in Delhi and Punjab, the party has MLAs in Goa, Gujarat and Jammu & Kashmir.

In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, AAP made an entry into the Lok Sabha with four seats from Punjab. By the 2017 assembly polls in Punjab, the party won 20 seats out of the 112 contested and secured the post of Leader of Opposition (LoP). The efforts continued until 2022 when of the 117 seats in the state, AAP bagged 92 — a record.

Slow Yet Steady Growth

While the journeys in Delhi and Punjab created history, the growth of AAP in other parts was slower.

Over the years, election after election, the party kept increasing its presence across the country but only through a handful of seats in certain assemblies.

The AAP, however, has failed to mark any significant milestone in Lok Sabha elections. The party so far has only eight MPs, including three elected in 2024.

Last month, with the victory of Mehraj Malik from Doda constituency, the AAP made its official entry into the Jammu and Kashmir assembly. In 2022, the AAP won two seats in Goa and five in Gujarat.

Legal Battles & Struggles in Governance

While forming the government in Delhi may seem to be a cakewalk for the party, running it without complete power was not that easy. In addition, the corruption charges against its top leadership added to its issue, which eventually put almost the entire team in jail at one point in time.

Delhi is not a full state and thus, the government here doesn’t enjoy certain powers that are otherwise with the state government. The never-ending struggle of the government with the L-G has often proved to be a hindrance in governance.

At certain points since 2015, the struggle between the L-G, Delhi government, and the officials who are under the Union government brought plans and governance to a standstill.

In June 2018, Kejriwal, along with his three cabinet colleagues, staged a sit-in at the Raj Niwas — residential-cum-official space of the LG — for around 10 days as the officials were “not cooperating with ministers”.

He ended the protest after the IAS officers’ association assured the CM that they would attend meetings.

Post 2020, the Delhi government and the top cabinet ministers faced allegations of tweaking the excise policy framework to favour a group of businessmen.

In November 2021, the AAP government introduced a new liquor policy for 2021-2022. In July 2022, the L-G highlighted irregularities in the formulation and implementation of the policy and demanded a CBI investigation.

In its charge sheet, the Central Bureau of Investigation alleged that Kejriwal and his government benefited from the illicit funds generated through the scam.

First, then finance minister Manish Sisodia was arrested in the case and later, even Kejriwal went to jail along with the party’s senior leader and Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh.

AAP leader and then Delhi health minister Satyendar Jain was also arrested for over two years in connection with a money-laundering case. However, one after the other, these leaders were granted bails.

Better Among Equals

It was the Anna Hazare Andolan of 2011 that is considered the origin of AAP. The country was angry and agitated and the frustration gave birth to one of India’s biggest anti-corruption campaigns helmed by Arvind Kejriwal.

Kejriwal announced the formation of the party on October 2, 2012, and it was launched on November 26 — the anniversary of India’s adoption of its Constitution in 1949.

The success rate of a new political party in India is generally low but Kejriwal and AAP were a different story.

In its first election, a little over a year after coming into existence, the party won 40 per cent of the seats it contested in Delhi — 28 of 69. In the next two elections, the performance was record-breaking, compared to the showing of other new parties that went for polls soon after their formation.

Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress, in its first assembly election in West Bengal in 2001, contested on 226 seats and bagged 60 — 26 per cent.

Similarly, Maharashtra-based Nationalist Congress Party contested the first election in 1999 on 223 seats and won in 58 assemblies in the state — a strike rate of 26 per cent. Importantly, both Sharad Pawar and Banerjee were senior politicians at the time they floated their parties.

Little before Kejriwal’s AAP, in March 2011, Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party (YSRCP) came into existence. Second-generation politician YS Jagan Mohan Reddy contested on 266 seats in the 2014 assembly polls in Andhra Pradesh and won 70 — 26 per cent. Reddy’s late father Rajasekhara was not just a Lok Sabha MP but had also served as the chief minister of Andhra Pradesh.

None of these parties, except NCP, managed to form the government in the first assembly election they contested.

The AAP and NCP shared a similar fate as they managed to form the government with the help of the Congress despite not having a pre-poll alliance.

But in the case of NCP, Congress had the chief minister’s post in Maharashtra in 1999 while Kejriwal took the support of the Congress to form his short-lived government of less than two months in 2013.

The success of AAP and Kejriwal on 28 seats in their first assembly poll in Delhi became more significant in the light of the fact that none of the candidates had a political background and almost all were common people or social activists.

The party claims that it has changed the political narrative in the county, forcing the bigger parties to talk about welfare schemes that went missing in the past.

For now, AAP is focusing its energy on the upcoming assembly polls in Delhi, scheduled to be held around the first few weeks of 2025. The elections will not just decide the fate of the party but also allow Kejriwal to secure a spot in the list of one of the longest-serving chief ministers of Delhi.