Aam Aadmi Party(AAP) has well and truly cashed on its Delhi development model as the party grabbed a 13.28% vote share in local body polls in Gujarat. Notably, this is the debut of Delhi based political party in Gujarat. With this debut, AAP has emerged as an option against both Congress and BJP in the state.
Meanwhile, BJP in these elections saw a sharp increase in their vote share to 53.08% which is their highest in the last 25 years. Before this, only in 2010 did the party achieve above 50% vote share.
For Congress there was a sharp decline in vote share of 14.48%, most of this decline came from Surat and Rajkot where Aam Aadmi Party did some serious damage to Congress.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said “the people of Gujarat wanted an alternative and AAP has emerged as the key alternative to the present parties. Now the upcoming assembly election will be only between the AAP and the BJP.”
Senior AAP leader and national spokesperson Saurav Bharadwaj told IANS that AAP has won 27 seats in Surat and is in second place with 17 seats. AAP is also in the second position in Rajkot with 13 seats and with 16 seats in Ahmedabad.
AAP party progress cannot be ignored at the local and grassroots levels. As in the recently concluded Gram Panchayat elections in Maharashtra, the party won 145 out of 300 seats. In the panchayat elections of Himachal Pradesh, it fielded 40 candidates and won 36 seats. AAP has won one seat of District Development Council (DDC) member in Jammu and Kashmir.
