Chief minister Atishi marked a bittersweet victory from Kalkaji constituency with a thin margin of 3,521 votes, even as the top brass of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) suffered heavy losses, and the party was decimated. Had the AAP returned to power, she might have been a strong contender for the post of the deputy chief minister, but those hopes have now been dashed. An AAP leader who asked not to be named told HT that Atishi might be considered for the post of leader of Opposition, though Delhi AAP convener Gopal Rai, who has won from the Babarpur constituency, is a stronger contender with more support within the AAP. To be sure, Atishi, with Arvind Kejriwal’s ouster from the assembly, will now be the only former CM in the House. In September last year, after Kejriwal resigned as the CM, Atishi began her rather short term as the CM, which saw a plethora of challenges – an upcoming election, the exit of top AAP leaders like Kailash Gahlot, an acrimonious relationship with the lieutenant governor (LG), and the struggle to fix the civic issues that plague Delhi. In Kalkaji, she fought against BJP’s Ramesh Bidhuri who ran a vitriolic campaign against her and repeatedly targetted her over her surname “Marlena,” her parents, and made sexist remarks against her. Her address to the media capped her conflicting feeling, where despite the victory, she said, “I won my seat, but this is not time to celebrate and the war against the BJP will continue. We accept the people’s mandate.” In the evening, however, a starkly different mood took over when in a show of strength – to her opposers within AAP and outside – Atishi took out a victory march in Kalkaji where she danced with her supporters and thanked them. An AAP leader who asked not to be named had told HT that after the party’s electoral loss was cemented in the afternoon, orders from the top asked all AAP leaders, even those who had won, to lay low. But Atishi, who has emerged as a politician with survival skills, this victory march was very much a statement.
