As Manish Sisodia is shifted to Jangpura, how AAP is planning to beat anti-incumbency in Delhi

On Sunday, a senior party leader told The Indian Express that “the shift is under consideration”. “There are other seats and leaders we are looking at first because there are bigger issues there,” the leader said.

Sisodia won from Patparganj in 2013, 2015 and 2020, with the win in the middle being the biggest with a margin of over 28,000 votes. In 2020, he won by just over 3,100 votes. “In 2020, the BJP’s campaign in certain seats, including those in East and North East Delhi, was focused on the anti-CAA protests. There were at least two senior BJP leaders who were camping in Patparganj for at least 10 days. This year so far, there is no one factor that the BJP has been able to capitalise on,” AAP sources said.

On November 21, AAP came out with a first list of 11 candidates for Delhi, including for six seats it lost to the BJP in 2020. It announced new candidates in three seats where it has sitting MLAs, with Anil Jha, Chaudhary Zubair Ahmed and Sumesh Shokeen replacing Kirari MLA Ritu Raj Govind, Seelampur MLA Abdul Rehman and Matiala MLA Gulab Singh. This is in addition to two seats where its MLAs had quit.

The party said the changes were necessitated by survey results. There has been more churn since.

Over the past two days, Delhi Assembly Speaker Ram Niwas Goel and Timarpur MLA Dilip Pandey, who has been associated with the party since the India Against Corruption movement, announced they will not contest this time. Gulab Singh, who was the party’s Gujarat election campaign in-charge, will also not contest.

“There are 10-11 more seats where sitting MLAs will have to be replaced. In a handful of cases, even if our surveys and ground reports show the party is ahead despite the MLA not being popular anymore, we will change the candidate because we want to avoid any negative voting at the last minute,” the senior party leader said.

In 2020, AAP had brought in 15 new faces. Reiterating that popularity and acceptability would be the key criteria this time too, the leader said “this election is different… we are asking for a third term and MLAs’ popularity becomes a key factor”.

“It is unlike the elections we have contested in the past. In 2013, AAP did far better than projections. The year 2015 was a landmark where the party won 67 out of 70 seats. In 2020, while we were apprehensive of anti-incumbency, our surveys showed we were well-placed,” the leader said, referring to the 62 seats the party won last time.

This time, the leader acknowledged, AAP is facing “a very tough election”.

Its top leadership, including Sisodia and Arvind Kejriwal, was in jail for several months mainly in the Delhi excise policy case, and is currently on bail. An acrimonious relationship with the bureaucracy, as well as Delhi Lt Governor V K Saxena, has also posed challenges with MLAs complaining that key civic work and schemes remained pending for months. Besides, the party has declared that it will not join hands with the Congress, its alliance partner in the INDIA bloc.

On the other hand, the BJP is hopeful that its focus on corruption allegations, particularly against Kejriwal, and the slow pace of work in rural Delhi would pull it through.

New Delhi MLA Kejriwal stepped down as Chief Minister after being granted bail and declared he would prove his innocence by getting re-elected. He was succeeded at the helm by Kalkaji MLA Atishi. Both are expected to contest from their existing seats this time.

AAP has traditionally been the first to declare its list of candidates but this time may disclose a few names closer to the nomination date. “In areas where there are major problems between party workers and councillors and MLAs, we will announce the names early so that the cadre is re-energised. In other areas, the announcement could take longer,” the senior AAP leader said.