CAUGHT IN A QUAGMIRE

Faced by a resurgent Congress and radicals, the AAP finds itself in a precarious place

- Anilesh S. Mahajan

For the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), embattled as it is with its convenor Arvind Kejriwal back in jail, the news from Punjab would have been of little solace.

In a virtual mid-term referendum on the Bhagwant Mann regime’s performance, the party managed to win just three of the 13 Lok Sabha seats in the border state, its vote share plummeting to 26.3 per cent from the 42 per cent it had cornered in the assembly election just over two years ago.

The AAP, in a seat-sha ring agreement with the Congress elsewhere, decided to go solo in Punjab. And it was Mann who took it upon himself to lead the party’s campaign, holding 122 public rallies and roadshows over 25 days besides travelling to Delhi and other states to canvass for the AAP candidates. Now, it seems, his campaign, built around the slogan ‘Sansad vich vi Bhagwant Mann (Mann in Parliament too)’, failed to stir the voters to the extent he had expected.