NEW DELHI: As Delhi goes to the polls in February 2025, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) faces an uphill task of repeating its spectacular performance of the last two elections.
The party’s top leadership, including its supremo Arvind Kejriwal, is facing cases of corruption and money laundering, a charge always denied and termed as “political witch-hunt” by AAP leaders.
The upcoming 2025 Assembly poll is likely to witness a triangular contest, and a war of words has already started between the leaders of AAP, BJP and Congress.
Interestingly, AAP and Congress, which are part of the opposition INDIA bloc at the Centre, are not only fighting the Vidhan Sabha elections separately, but fiercely attacking each other.
AAP had emerged victorious in two consecutive elections with emphatic victories — winning 67 of 70 seats in 2015 and 62 in 2020. In both these elections, the left-over seats were secured by the BJP, while the Congress drew a blank.
Despite being in power for 10 years, the AAP will have to combat two major problems the anti-incumbency and its image spoiled by the Opposition over the alleged corruption cases against its party leadership.
To counter anti-incumbency in the forthcoming elections, the AAP has announced a slew of welfare schemes for the people, if they are voted to power, while both the BJP and Congress are attacking AAP for the alleged excise policy scam and renovation of the CM’s house at exorbitant prices.
The previous year too has been troublesome for the party. Just in the third month of the year, AAP faced a major challenge with the arrest of Arvind Kejriwal on March 22, hours after the Delhi High Court denied him protection against “coercive action” by the Enforcement Directorate in the money-laundering case. AAP leaders Manish Sisodia, Sanjay Singh and Satyendra Jain (in a separate case) were already behind bars at the time.
The ED claimed that Kejriwal had been intrinsically involved in the entire conspiracy and the proceeds of the crime to the tune of Rs 45 crore were used in the campaign for Goa Assembly poll.
AAP called Kejriwal’s arrest as BJP’s attempt to thwart AAP supremo from campaigning in the Lok Sabha polls. Nonetheless, the party’s clean image of giving a corruption-free model to the Indian polity has been hit with their leaders’ arrest. But, AAP kept moving forward with hope of their leaders early release.