Putting all eggs in the welfare basket contributed to the decline in AAP's appeal in Delhi

Putting all eggs in the welfare basket contributed to the decline in AAP's appeal in Delhi

- Roshan Kishore

Ten years is not a very long time in politics or in the life of a political party. It is normal for political preferences and fortunes of political parties to evolve over decades. The Congress's fortunes, for example, started declining in the 1960s and finally collapsed in the 2010s. The Bharatiya Jana Sangh – the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) previous avatar – struggled with its politics throughout the 1960s and 1970s, had a disastrous new stint when it rechristened itself as the BJP in the early 1980s, and finally started gaining ground in 1989 before establishing itself as the dominant hegemon a decade ago.

It is on this front that the Aam Aadmi Party's (AAP) story is fascinating in fast-forward mode. It came out of nowhere in 2013 and went on to sweep the Delhi assembly elections in 2015 and 2020. What was even more remarkable about the AAP's landslide victories in the Delhi assembly elections was the fact that it was powered by a section of the BJP's voter base. The latter always had a much higher vote share and seat share in the Lok Sabha elections than in the assembly elections.