Chief Minister Delhi, national convenor of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Arvind Kejriwal, on Saturday message on Twitter, admitted that the party had made “mistakes” and that there was a need to “course correct” and “introspect” to revive the party’s fortunes.
Kejriwal said, “In the last two days, I spoke to many volunteers. The reality is that we made mistakes but we will introspect and course correct. This is the time to go back to drawing board.
It was a rare admission of failure by the activist who had blamed “tampered EVMs” for the failure in the recent MCD polls in Delhi. It also came a day after an AAP party leader, Kumar Vishwas, challenged the party’s official line besides raising a host of other issues related to party functioning. While other senior party functionaries refused to comment on the message of Kejriwal terming it the AAP national convenor’s personal prerogative. The AAP party is now planning for huge correction in the upcoming days.
The Aam admi Party (AAP) made a disappointing debut in the MCD election of Delhi getting only 48 seats even as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) rode to victory despite a decade’s anti-incumbency bagging 181seats out of 270 seats across the 3 municipal corporations with the Congress’ tally recorded at 30.
After the party’s poor show in the election, top leaders came to the conclusion that in this situation, it is very tough to compete against the “growing stature” of PM Narendra Modi, whose personal appeal to voters is seen as the main reason for his party’s landslide success. The Bharatiya Janata Party, which held all 3 corporations of Delhi for the last 10 years, won them again – and with more seats.
On Thursday, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) concluded that its rejection in the latest Delhi election was due in part to the “spillover effect” of the BJP’s landslide victory in neighboring Uttar Pradesh last month. There also it was the Prime Minister Narendra Modi whose appeal was unmatchable.
This month’s local election in Delhi is the first that Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) contested. AAP formed the government in 2014. After less than two months in office, Mr. Kejriwal resigned in protest against his anti-corruption Lokpal bill proposal being stalled by other parties. Later he apologizes for his impulsive decision. In 2015, after Prime Minister Modi was elected, again elections in Delhi were called and Arvind Kejriwal pulled off a jaw-dropping result, with Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) losing just 3 seats in the city.
Arvind Kejriwal added “We owe that to voters and volunteers. Need is the action and not the excuses. It’s time to go back to work without any excuses. And even if we deviate from time to time, the key is to find the deviation to hold and pull ourselves up in the competition. The people deserve nothing less. The only constant in the society is the ‘change’”.
