Letters: Contender, not winner

With reference to Shekhar Gupta’s article, “Writings on the Punjab wall” (February 4), it would be foolish to write the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) off in Punjab. Whether or not the AAP emerges winner in the polls, it will surely eat into the votes of the Congress, the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
 
AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal is smart enough to target only those states where either the BJP or the Congress have ruled; hence he has zeroed in on Delhi, Goa, Gujarat and Punjab.
 
Assembly polls are being held in Uttar Pradesh, too, but the AAP chose not to enter the fray there, knowing well that it is the caste and religion arithmetic that decides the winner in the state. The AAP does not have expertise in this area.

 

But stating that the AAP is set to rise as national force is jumping the gun. In Punjab, voters may be fed up with both the ruling SAD-BJP combine and the Congress, but because the AAP does not have a chief ministerial candidate to boast of, it may find it tough to emerge victorious.
 
Moreover in Delhi, where the AAP has a majority, it has not lived up to the expectations of the people. The party may be riding too much on luck; it still does not have the credibility to back its promises.