AAP faces offer mixed reasons for poll defeat

According to the party’ candidates, the reasons for AAP’s debacle ranged from “Narendra Modi wave” and alleged EVM tampering to the party’s failure in connecting with voters during the campaign.

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which had stood second in Delhi in terms of vote share in the 2014 general elections, lost its position to the Congress this year and settled for the third spot. The party had bagged around one-third of the total votes in 2014.

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which had stood second in Delhi in terms of vote share in the 2014 general elections, lost its position to the Congress this year and settled for the third spot.(Amal KS/HT PHOTO)

According to the party’ candidates, the reasons for AAP’s debacle ranged from “Narendra Modi wave” and alleged EVM tampering to the party’s failure in connecting with voters during the campaign.

The party’s vote share in the results announced on Thursday stood at 18.11 per cent.

“This election was not the one which was fought on issues that matter to the people, it was rather swayed by a person-centric wave. The person was Narendra Modi,” said Balbir Jakhar, the party’s candidate from West Delhi.

For Gugan Singh, the party’s candidate from the North-West Delhi constituency, it was “EVM tampering” that left the party empty-handed and not the “Modi wave”.

Singh said, “If you see the results, then it is clear that the ratio of the BJP and other parties votes on each booth was 60:40 which is unprecedented. This is unbelievable. Such results clearly indicate that there was some sort of tampering done with the EVMs. There was no Modi wave.”

The party refrained on commenting on issues related to EVM (electronic voting machines). “EVM and VVPAT(voter-verified paper audit trail) is purely a technical subject. We would refrain from commenting before we get some data based on research and analysis. We will keep advocating electoral reforms in the world’s largest democracy,” said Saurabh Bharadwaj, the party’s spokesperson.

Brijesh Goyal, the party’s candidate from New Delhi, said he sensed a disconnect with voters in his constituency from during campaigning itself. “New Delhi is a posh, upper-class constituency. It was hard to organise meetings and public gatherings with people. In many door-to-door campaigns, we hardly managed to meet a decent number of people. In the end, they did not vote for us. The problem is more deep-rooted,” he said.

The other four candidates of the party – Raghav Chadha of South Delhi, Atishi of East Delhi, Pankaj Gupta of Chandni Chowk and Dilip Pandey of North East Delhi – were not available for comments despite repeated phone calls and text messages.

Later in the day, Raghav Chadha tweeted “We accept the defeat, accept the mandate, ready for the struggle again.”