Before the December 2022 Assembly elections in Gujarat, a large number of Congress leaders and party men joined Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party that had promised free electricity up to 300 units and much more. A few from the ruling BJP also shifted loyalty.
In a state where a third front has never succeeded in electoral battle, Kejriwal and his team, comprising MPs and MLAs from the states where the AAP is in power, projected as if the party is all set to dethrone the BJP.
His Town Halls went full house and meetings with different strata of the society also evoked good response. The Congress appeared nowhere. While the Congress party workers, who were fed up with the party’s track record and the way of functioning, joined the AAP, it also appeared that people were almost ready to test the third front. After all, Kejriwal had made a lot of promises and always gave examples of how the AAP transformed the education and healthcare facilities in Delhi. Actions taken in Punjab were also cited as examples.
The results, however, came in as a shocker for the AAP, though the party managed to get a national party status based on the vote share. AAP bagged only five seats in the 182-assembly. The BJP broke all previous records while the Congress bagged only 17 seats in its worst ever performance.
The AAP bubble burst and now just nine months down the line, a steady stream of leaders and party workers are quitting the party. Majority of them are joining the Congress. The latest in the series is tribal leader and AAP state vice president Arjun Rathva who joined the Congress on Tuesday.
Rathva had unsuccessfully contested the assembly election, but secured over 45,000 votes.
Rathva told THE WEEK that the AAP did not put in efforts for the candidates’ victory in the tribal belt, and after the results the party showed no interest in analyzing the performance and planning for the way forward.
“When I repeatedly spoke about analyzing the performance, the party started sidelining me,” said the leader, who was associated with the party for more than a decade.
Political parties have changed and changes are visible in the Congress, too, said Rathva. “People like Rahul Gandhi and I also see that the newly appointed Gujarat Congress president, Shaktisinh Gohil wants to win the election. I had not seen something like this before,” he said.
Gohil told THE WEEK that the AAP leaders and party men have realized that a third front cannot succeed in Gujarat and that only the Congress can defeat the BJP. This blue blood Congress leader, who is also a Rajya Sabha member, is eyeing 2027 assembly elections.
Apart from usual outreach programmes to connect with the masses, the Congress is also undertaking a special exercise to get more people, including those associated with other parties, in its fold. The programme is headed by Indranil Rajguru, who had joined the AAP for a short stint and then returned to his mother party. Hailing from Rajkot, Rajguru, a businessman having a deep purse, has often emerged as the party’s savior when it comes to coordination in troubled times.
The AAP, meanwhile, has been holding weekly ‘Tiranga Sabhas’ and trying to reach up to the booth level for the Lok Sabha elections. The sabhas are aimed at listening to people’s problems and trying to solve the issues through representations at the right places.
Rakesh Hirapara, AAP’s state general secretary, alleged that people are joining the Congress for monetary gains. He claimed that not as many party men and leaders have joined the Congress as it is being projected.
Before the elections, the party had projected Isudan Ghadvi as the chief ministerial candidate. The move had come at a time when Gopal Italia was the state party president. After the elections, Ghadvi was made the state party president and Italia was taken at the central level and he is now looking at the party’s affairs in Maharashtra.
AAP Gujarat unit’s interventions are largely limited in media and social media.
