AAP's renewed efforts to expand base beyond Delhi marked 2021

The year gone by saw the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) embarking on its avowed mission of expanding its footprints beyond Delhi with a fresh strategy even as on the home front, the party kept up its preparations for the 2022 civic polls in the national capital to wrest power from the ruling BJP.

On January 28, Delhi Chief Minister and AAP national convenor Arvind Kejriwal announced his party's decision to contest the assembly polls in six states - Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Goa, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat.

The party also brought in certain amendments to its constitution to keep it in sync with its national ambitions as some of its clauses were bringing "difficulties" in the party's growth in the states, especially where it was new and being built up from the scratch.

The amendments enabled the party's state executive to appoint an interim office bearer in case of a vacancy, its MPs and MLAs become party's national council member "by default" besides being the part of the state council in their respective states.

The changes in the AAP's constitution also allowed more than one person from a family to contest elections on the party's ticket.

The party grabbed headlines as Kejriwal and his colleagues began holding political rallies, meetings and other events in poll-bound Punjab, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and Goa, promising free education, free and better healthcare services, jobs, unemployment allowance to youth, Rs 1,000 per month to women, 24x7 free electricity et al.

"It remained a very significant year for the AAP, especially from the point of view of its expansion as the party decided to contest assembly elections in six states in 2022," senior AAP leader and Rajya Sabha member Sanjay Singh told PTI.

All leaders and workers of the party are working "tirelessly" to ensure the AAP's victory in the upcoming elections, he said, asserting, "We are going to form our government in Punjab."

He claimed that his is receiving a "very good response" from the people in Uttar Pradesh.

"We won 83 seats in Uttar Pradesh panchayat elections (held last year), securing 40 lakh votes," he said.

Singh, who is in-charge of the AAP's political affairs in Uttar Pradesh, made headlines in 2021 as he raised various issues of corruption in Yogi Adityanath government including alleged corruption in land deals carried out for the construction of Ram temple in Ayodhya.

The year 2021 also saw the AAP winning 70 seats across 13 districts in panchayat polls in Maharashtra in January, making inroads in Gujarat politics in February bagging 27 seats in the Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC) and emerging as the main opposition in the civic body.

A week later, the AAP emerged victorious in 42 seats in rural and semi-urban pockets of Gujarat. It won 31 seats in taluka panchayats, nine in municipalities and two district panchayat seats.

In March, the AAP won four of the five civic wards in Delhi in a by-poll after which Kejriwal asserted that the people of the national capital are desperate to bring the AAP to power in the three municipal corporations.

Towards the end of the year, the AAP became the leading party in the Chandigarh municipal corporation as it won 14 of 35 wards in the civic polls contesting them for the first time.

"Amid the prevailing situations in Punjab, we are emerging as the number one party in the state. All the surveys are showing that we are ahead of all others, we will be forming our government if elections are held tomorrow," claimed party spokesperson and co-in charge of its political affairs in Punjab Raghav Chadha.

He further claimed that the wind in Punjab is in favour of the AAP this time and that the people of the state are fed up with the Shiromani Akali Dal and the ruling Congress both due to "corruption" in their respective regimes.

While the AAP will make its electoral debut in the upcoming assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh, it will join the fray for the second time in Goa, Gujarat and Punjab.

The party had lost all the seats it had contested in the assembly polls held in Goa and Gujarat in 2017 but made a surprise entry into Punjab politics winning 20 of the 112 seats that it had fought in same year and became the main Opposition party in the state.

"If we go by the current mood, I think AAP is on the way of its expansion," noted political analyst and co-director of Lokniti-CSDS Sanjay Kumar told PTI.

He said the future of the party will depend on its success in the upcoming polls and it has a "very good chance of winning" in Punjab.

"They seem to be a frontrunner in Punjab. There is no doubt about that," he asserted.

He noted that the AAP is the only regional party in the country which has support base beyond its parent state.

"In my opinion, the AAP has brighter prospects in 2022-23 till 2024 but the party needs to look for local leadership," Kumar suggested.