Shrinking footprint: AAP says onus on BJP to fix all problems

Just weeks after its defeat in the Delhi assembly elections, the Aam Aadmi Party's (AAP) decision to not contest the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) mayoral polls leaves the outfit its most diminished footprint in the Capital since its electoral debut.

- Paras Singh and Alok KN Mishra

NEW DELHI:

From the political highs of 2022 — when it won a landslide in Punjab, fought spirited campaigns in Goa and Gujarat, and ended the year by sweeping the MCD polls — which followed thumping victories in Delhi assembly polls in 2013, 2015 and 2020, the AAP has now, in just two and a half years, found itself purely in the opposition in all of Delhi's elected bodies.

While AAP leaders acknowledged on Monday that defections cost them their MCD majority, they framed the decision not to contest as a principled one—eschewing "horse-trading" and "poaching". But privately, several leaders said the move had sown disillusionment in the party.

At a press conference, Delhi AAP chief Saurabh Bharadwaj, with former CM Atishi by his side, said the BJP would now run a "four-engine government" in Delhi. "From now on, BJP is solely responsible for every problem in Delhi. Within a month, their bluff will be exposed," he said.

Until now, civic issues like sanitation and public works were blamed on both AAP and the bureaucracy, with the party arguing it was hamstrung by a hostile administrative set-up. But some within AAP questioned the leadership's withdrawal. "We should've at least fought. Even BJP did that when they didn't have the numbers," said a senior councillor.