How Arvind Kejriwal's AAP trumped Congress in Surat municipal polls

File image: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) made an impressive debut in local body elections in Gujarat’s Surat by coming second with 27 of the 120 seats.

The Arvind Kejriwal-led party will now sit in the opposition in Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC). The Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) won 93 seats in the Corporation.

An elated Kejriwal thanked the people of Surat on the mandate and said that he will visit the city later this week. The Delhi chief minister is expected to hold a roadshow in the city.

“I will be visiting Surat on February 26 to thank the people for helping Aam Aadmi Party emerge as the main opposition party in Gujarat local body polls and rejecting Congress,” Arvind Kejriwal said.

આમ આદમી પાર્ટીના ગુજરાત યુનિટના તમામ કાર્યકરોની મહેનતને સલામ અને બધાને હાર્દિક અભિનંદન. સુરતના મતદાતાઓએ પણ વ્યક્ત કર્યું છે કે હવે ભવિષ્યમાં સમગ્ર ગુજરાત કર્મના રાજકારણને આવકારવા તૈયાર છે. pic.twitter.com/YyYNrb2nxz

— Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) February 24, 2021

The performance assumes significance as it is part of AAP’s national expansion ambitions.

The party’s attempts to play a larger role at the national level have failed in the past, except in Punjab where it emerged as the main opposition party in the 2017 assembly polls.

However, its electoral performance in the 2020 Delhi assembly polls, winning 62 out of the 70 seats, has renewed the party's desire to expand its footprint beyond the national capital and Punjab.

“New politics has started in Gujarat. I want to assure you that each candidate will perform responsibilities honestly,” Kejriwal said in a video message on February 24.

Kejriwal had announced in January that the party will contest assembly elections in six states in the next two years.

The AAP had put up 469 candidates in the 576 seats of the six municipal corporations of Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Surat, Rajkot, Jamnagar, and Bhavnagar

Overall, BJP swept elections to six municipal corporations in Gujarat by winning 483 out of 576 seats. The ruling party retained power in all the six municipal corporations in the state.

READ: Gujarat civic poll results | BJP strengthens hold in state, AAP gains at Congress' expense

AAP’s performance is being linked to the weakening of the Congress in Surat where the grand-old party drew a blank.

The influential Patidar community had supported the Congress after 2015 but preferred the AAP over the grand-old-party this time.

Incidentally, Gujarat AAP chief Gopal Italia, who joined AAP in June 2020, hails from Surat and comes from the Patidar community.  The AAP has won all its seats in the Patidar-dominated areas where quota agitation was led by Hardik Patel in 2015. Patel is now the president of the Gujarat Pradesh Congress.

Many reports said that Congress paid for not mending fences with the Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS).  PAAS leaders were unhappy with the Congress over the number of tickets demanded so much so that three Patidar leaders fielded by the Congress refused to file their nominations at the last moment, reports said.

AAP pitched in and made the most of the rift. Senior AAP leader and Delhi’s deputy CM Manish Sisodia held two roadshows in Surat ahead of the civic polls.

AAP’s national spokesperson Saurabh Bhardwaj told reporters that in its first election in Gujarat, the party had “breached Modi’s citadel”.

“The citizens of Gujarat are looking for an alternative to the BJP and AAP has emerged as their first choice,” he said.

The AAP has won the assembly elections in Delhi thrice. Kejriwal, who is AAP's national convener besides being the Delhi chief minister, had unsuccessfully taken on Prime Minister Narendra Modi from Varanasi in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections -- a year after AAP first came to power in Delhi.

“We will raise public issues on the streets as well as in the House. AAP will keep on exposing the mismanagement of the BJP government” said Gulab Singh AAP’s Gujarat co-incharge.