Punjab: How Kejriwal and Company wrote the script for victory after Delhi’s defeat
Punjab: The Aam Aadmi Party’s decisive victory in the Ludhiana West and Visavadar bypolls has given a much-needed boost to its convenor and “chief strategist” Arvind Kejriwal. The win marks a political revival for him after the AAP suffered a crushing defeat in the Delhi Assembly elections earlier this year. Kejriwal, however, has made it clear that he will not replace the newly elected MLA from Ludhiana West in the Rajya Sabha. He said the final decision will be taken at the party’s political affairs committee meeting to be held later this week. The win in Ludhiana West, a constituency that had been with the Congress or the Akali Dal for nearly three decades, except in 2022, also underlines the success of the AAP’s strategy of projecting Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann as the party’s face, while Kejriwal, along with Punjab affairs in-charge Manish Sisodia and Satyendar Jain, handled the backend political manoeuvring. After the Delhi elections, Kejriwal and his close aides immediately focused on the bypolls. The AAP was the first to announce its candidate, Rajya Sabha MP Sanjeev Arora, in February itself. Arora, a prominent industrialist with no political experience, was seen by the party’s top leadership as an ideal Hindu businessman candidate for a constituency dominated by Hindu and business class voters.
His first nomination gave him enough time to connect with voters, while the Congress and the BJP announced their candidates three weeks before polling. AAP sources revealed that the party deliberately refrained from responding to the opposition’s narrative that Kejriwal could replace Arora in the Rajya Sabha. “This ensured that the opposition’s narrative focused on that very issue. It was clear within Kejriwal’s core group of strategists that he would not go to the Rajya Sabha. Since they have faith in the twin engines of the AAP in Punjab – Mann’s mass appeal and his own administrative and political acumen – he is going to spend time here building the party’s structure and ensuring that policymaking and implementation pick up pace and development work begins,” said a senior party leader. Both Mann and his wife Dr Gurpreet Kaur Mann received tremendous support during the election campaign and the party’s strong grassroots mobilisation, as well as victory in last December’s local body elections, further boosted Arora’s prospects, he said. The party’s vote share rose from 34 per cent in 2022 to 39 per cent this time. As the ruling party, the AAP leveraged its position to woo industrialists and urban voters. Key industry-friendly decisions such as the land pooling policy, easing of industrial plot rules and cracking down on farmer union protests that disrupted businesses helped consolidate support. These measures, along with the removal of the year-long dharna at the Shambhu and Khanauri borders, played a key role in securing urban votes and strengthening AAP’s connect with the business community.
