Kejriwal once again drowns in Modi wave

Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party made an impressive debut in December 2013, when it defeated Delhi’s three-time chief minister Sheila Dikshit in the state assembly elections.

Although AAP led a minority government that lasted barely two months, the party went national in the 2014 general election. It contested in over 400 seats, with Kejriwal taking on the BJP’s Narendra Modi in Varanasi. He lost, but AAP surprised by winning four seats in Punjab.

AAP pulled off a spectacular victory in the Delhi assembly elections of 2015, winning 67 of the 70 seats – despite a clean sweep of the seven Lok Sabha seats in the capital by the BJP in the 2014 general election – and Kejriwal became chief minister of Delhi for the second time. However, barely five years since then, the story is entirely different. Kejriwal is once again drowning in the Modi wave that’s led to the BJP retaining all seven Lok Sabha seats with ease.


That apart, AAP’s vote share has declined. AAP’s vote share, which was the bedrock of Kejriwal’s prepoll alliance bid with the Congress in Delhi, Haryana and Punjab, shrank to 18.26% from 32.9% in 2014, behind even the Congress share of over 22%.