AAP fails to expand outside Delhi again, draws a blank in assembly polls

We did not project ourselves as the Congress and the BJP did during the polls, says AAP party

The AAP's attempt to expand outside Delhi failed again on Tuesday as it drew a blank in assembly polls and the NOTA bagged more votes than the party.

In Madhya Pradesh, the AAP fielded 208 candidates and a majority of them had their deposits fortified. Its chief ministerial candidate and Narmada Bachao Andolan member Alok Agarwal bagged 823 votes as against 29,789 garnered by a Congress candidate and 29,396 by a BJP candidate from the Bhopal Dakshin Paschim seat. The counting for the seat was still on.

In Chhattisgarh, the party fielded candidates on 85 seats, on 41 in Telangana and on 142 in Rajasthan.

The results showed that this was yet another election when the AAP was unable to make a mark outside Delhi.

It somehow succeeded in Punjab last year, where it is the principal opposition party but its legislators are at odds with the central leadership. It put up a poor show in Goa last year.

The NOTA or none of the above option appeared to have outperformed several political parties, including the AAP and the Samajwadi Party, which contested the assembly polls in the five states, including Mizoram.

According to Election Commission's website at 5.45 pm on Tuesday, the NOTA votes ranged as high as 2.1 per cent in Chhattisgarh to a low of 0.5 per cent in Mizoram.

AAP's leadership refrained from commenting on the party's performance in the elections. However, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said the poll results were an indication that the countdown for the end of the Modi-rule has begun.

Party leaders said the AAP did not wholeheartedly participate in the polls and the exercise was undertaken to keep the organisation intact in most of the states.

A party leader said the central leadership also did not show interest in other states as it showed in Punjab and Goa in 2017.

"We did not project ourselves as the Congress and the BJP did during the polls. We could not match their resources," Agarwal told PTI.

Interestingly, Kejriwal last visited Madhya Pradesh in July, Agarwal said.

"In Telangana, we contested to make our presence felt and also for our organisation," AAP MLA and the party's Telangana in-charge Somnath Bharti said.

In Rajasthan, the AAP had to sort out its internal squabbles. Last year, the party made rebel leader Kumar Vishwas in-charge of the state. He quit the post, alleging that the leadership was not supporting him. The party's affairs in Rajasthan were then handed over to Deepak Bajpai.