Arvind Kejriwal's Third Term As Delhi CM Assured, AAP Reinforces Pre-2014 National Ambition

This is not for the first time that Arvind Kejriwal-led party has attempted to go national. During the 2014 Lok Sabha Elections, AAP contested the national elections with enrolling over 1 crore members nationwide.

Delhi Dy CM and AAP leader Manish Sisodia waves a flag as he celebrates along with his supporters after winning from the Patparganj Assembly seat. (Image: PTI)

New Delhi: After Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) bounced back in national capital bagging a thumping majority in Delhi Assembly Elections 2020, the party has hinted a giant step of going national for the third time. Soon as the early trends of election results started giving a clear majority to AAP on Tuesday morning, party head office placed a huge hoarding which read: "Associate with AAP for nation building." Addressing volunteers for the first time after the final rounds of counting gave AAP a 63 seats lead in national capital, party's Delhi chief Gopal Rai said the city gave votes to love and defeated hate. He said in Hindi that "Baat nikli hai toh dur talak jaigi' (We will go a long way)." Rai said this politics of change will not be just limited to the national capital. "The way you celebrate love in Delhi, it gave a new definition of patriotism that involved working for the common man. A new kind of nationalism was born here which speaks about common man and improvement in their living standards," he added. Apart from Rai's statements, the claims of going national become more potent as AAP's social media handles also put out posts which read: “Join the revolution, join AAP.” The party posted phone numbers for people to express their interest in joining AAP.

राजनीति करने नहीं, राजनीति बदलने आये हैं।

Join The Revolution, Join AAP Give a missed call on : 9871 010101#JoinAAP pic.twitter.com/G6xdJWqdEb — AAP (@AamAadmiParty) February 11, 2020

However, this is not for the first time that Arvind Kejriwal-led party has attempted to go national. During the 2014 Lok Sabha Elections, AAP contested the national elections with enrolling over 1 crore members nationwide. However, the party failed to win any seats for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections in the capital city. Taking lessons from the 2014 debacle, AAP decided to contest in general elections again in 2019, but this time with limited expansion. The party fielded candidates on limited seats in some states and on all of the seats of Delhi, Goa and Punjab. Beyond Delhi, AAP had also contested Assembly elections in states of Punjab, Goa, Maharashtra and Haryana. ALSO WATCH | Delhi Elections 2020: Congress Fails Miserably, Loses Deposit On 67 Seats In 2017 Goa Assembly Elections, AAP lost all the seats and even failed to save deposits of 38 out of 39 seats. However, in Punjab, the party formed an alliance with Lok Insaaf Party and managed to win 20 seats in the state. AAP had also formed an alliance with the Jannayak Janata Party (JJP) in Haryana for the Lok Sabha polls held last year, but called off the tie-up after facing a humiliating defeat. As per the ongoing trends Kejriwal-led AAP is leading on 63 out of 70 seats in 2020 Delhi Assembly elections. The AAP had won 67 seats in the 2015 Assembly polls. BJP, which could only bag 3 seats in 2015, has managed to make seat on 7 seats whereas Congress continues its 2015 performance as heads to draw a blank even this time.