AAP fails to mark presence in Maharashtra, Haryana
Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal (File Photo/IANS)
New Delhi:The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) failed to open its account in the Maharashtra and Haryana Assembly polls with party leaders saying they were focusing on the upcoming polls in Delhi.
In the 90-member Haryana Assembly, the AAP fielded its candidates on 46 seats, while it was contesting on 24 of the 288 Assembly seats in Maharashtra.
Till 6 p.m., the Assembly trends, as per the Election Commission, showed that the AAP managed to get only 0.48 per cent votes in Haryana and 0.11 per cent in Maharashtra — lower than NOTA.
When contacted the Maharashtra unit said they did not get much time to prepare for the polls.
“We took the decision of contesting very late. Also, the party was not contesting across all the seats in Maharashtra. This is just to register our presence in the state. The party did not put in too many efforts also from Delhi,” a leader from Maharashtra told IANS.
For the 288 Assembly seats in Maharashtra, both the National Convenor of AAP Arvind Kejriwal and senior party leader Sanjay Singh went to campaign for just one seat. However, for Haryana, no AAP leader went for the campaign.
When contacted, a party leader from Haryana told IANS over the phone that the AAP was putting all its focus on the upcoming Delhi polls.
“The party took a conscious decision to use its resources in Delhi. The party has more chances of winning in Delhi. We were contesting in Haryana to mark our presence,” the Haryana leader said.
The AAP had faced similar results in 2017 in Goa, where it did not win a single seat in the 40-member legislature. The AAP also failed to open its account in the 2017 Gujarat Assembly polls where all its 29 candidates lost their deposits. In the 2018 Assembly polls in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh the picture was the same.
It was only in the 2017 Punjab Legislative Assembly election that the party bagged 20 seats. The AAP scored a landslide victory in the 2015 Delhi Assembly polls where it bagged 67 of the 70 seats.
Published on: Oct 24, 2019 at 19:27 IST
IANS
