Delhi elections looming, Haryana drubbing has AAP worried

For the past month, senior AAP leaders, including chief Arvind Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia, Sanjay Singh and Raghav Chadha, were campaigning in Haryana. On the last day of campaigning, Kejriwal and Sisodia had said during public addresses that the government will not be formed without its support.

In a statement, the party said the Haryana results won’t have an impact on the Delhi polls. “The BJP won the Haryana elections in 2014 and 2019, but those results don’t sway Delhi. Delhi votes for the politics of work, not empty promises. When the BJP seemed ‘invincible’, riding on the ‘Modi Magic’ and winning across the country, it was this ‘nutmeg-sized’ party that handed them historic defeats — twice reducing their seats to single digits. The BJP must understand that Delhi’s heart beats only for Arvind Kejriwal,” it said.

According to AAP sources, the party had hoped to perform well in seats in Kurukshetra as well as those bordering Punjab. The only seat where it did not lose its deposit, however, was Jagadhri, where its candidate Adarsh Pal Singh polled 43,813 votes.

Not only did AAP not win any seat in Haryana, it missed the second place as well. The best result it achieved was the third position, in 11 out of a total of 90 seats.

Only a month ago, AAP and Congress’s alliance talks in the state broke down, reportedly over seat sharing. After the results became clear, AAP trained its guns on the Congress for failing to come to a mutually beneficial decision in the state.

On Monday, as the votes were being counted, Kejriwal took a dig at the party in his address to AAP councillors in Delhi.

“Let us see what the final results are in Haryana, but one thing is clear, the biggest lesson is that one should never be overconfident in the elections,” he said.

The party’s Rajya Sabha MP, Sanjay Singh, said that the Congress failed to take everyone together. “We had said that we should come together and defeat the BJP… the Samajwadi Party also tried. Had that happened, it would have been a Congress government and a Congress chief minister. The Congress did not take anyone together. Things don’t work this way,” he said.

In a post on X, Raghav Chadha, ostensibly alluding to the breakdown of talks between AAP and Congress, wrote: “Hamari aarzu ki fir karte toh kuch aur baat hoti, Hamari hasrat ka khan rakhte toh ek alag shaam hoti, Aaj vo bhi pachta raha hoga mera saath chhodkar, agar saath-saath chalte toh kuch aur baat hoti (If you had cared about our wishes, it would have been a different matter. If you had paid heed to our desires, it would have been a different evening. Today he too must be regretting leaving us; if we had walked together, it would have been a different matter).”

Leaders are now worried about what the results signal for the national capital.

“In 2019, when we contested in Haryana for the first time, the situation was different. The party was not undergoing its worst crisis, as it is now. On the other hand, the campaign was not as strong as it was this year. To have such few votes in Haryana certainly has people worried,” said a senior leader.

AAP managed a vote share of just 1.7 percent in the state.

The Congress’s defeat, meanwhile, has also reignited speculation about the tie-up between the two parties in Delhi. According to a senior party leader, the Congress’s performance in the polls means “the party has lost its bargaining chip”.

“Earlier, it was AAP that was pushing for a tie-up in both Haryana and Delhi. Now, it is the other way round. A Congress win would have been very worrying for AAP as it would have indicated a revival of the party in Delhi, especially in villages and assembly constituencies that border Haryana,” this senior party leader said. “In any case, several senior AAP leaders and MLAs are opposed to an alliance with the Congress in Delhi for the fear of losing its voter base, which originally voted for Congress before AAP came into existence.”

A party insider chimed in, “It was clear to us by the middle of September that we would not win much in Haryana. We knew we were late to arrive on the campaigning scene. It was because our leaders were behind bars. We were hoping for two-three seats at the most. The fact that most of our leaders have got only a few thousand votes is concerning.”

But, he added, “We did not make a dent in Haryana in 2019 either, and a few months before that, we lost all seven Lok Sabha seats. We still came back to power with 62 out of 70 seats in Delhi. The challenge is bigger this time around, though. Anti-incumbency, depletion of party resources, allegations of corruption against our leaders and, most of all, MLAs and councillors quitting the party are all points of concern.”