Kejriwal admits ‘mistakes’ after MCD election loss, says AAP will introspect

After failing to perform as expected in the recent Punjab and Goa assembly elections, the 5-year-old AAP faced a humiliating defeat in the municipal elections in Delhi.

Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Saturday attributed the recent electoral losses to the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)’s own “mistakes”, vowing to introspect and do a course correction to revive the party’s fortunes.

Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal addresses a press conference at his residence in New Delhi. Several leaders of his Aam Aadmi Party have blamed the leadership for a string of election losses recently. (Sonu Mehta/HT FILE PHOTO)

It was a rare admission of failure by the activist-turned-politician who had blamed “tampered EVMs” for the poor show in the recent civic polls in Delhi. It also came a day after one of his party leaders, Kumar Vishwas, challenged the party’s official line besides raising a host of other issues related to party functioning.

“In the last two days, I spoke to many volunteers and voters. The reality is obvious. Yes, we made mistakes but we will introspect and course correct. Time to go back to drawing board. To not evolve will be silly,” Kejriwal said in a tweet with a screenshot of a short message.

“We owe that to voters n volunteers. We owe that to ourselves. Need is action and not excuses. It’s time to go back to work. And even if we slip from time to time, the key is to find the reserves to hold and pull ourselves up. The people deserve nothing less. The only thing constant is change,” the note added.

After failing to perform as expected in the Punjab and Goa assembly elections, the AAP faced a humiliating drubbing in the municipal elections in its own backyard, just over two years after winning a brute majority in Delhi assembly elections.

The loss had raised questions over his style of confrontational politics, often taking on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and blaming the BJP-led government at the Centre of creating hurdles for the AAP government.

His admission of mistakes is seen as an attempt to reconnect with the voters in a manner he had successfully done after his first stint in 2014. Then he had apoligised to the people for quitting over the Jan Lokpal Bill, a strategy which saw his party storm back to power in 2015 with an overwhelming majority.