AAP tsunami wrecks BJP

Amit Shah strategy, ‘Modi wave’ deliver only three seats

New Delhi: Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) juggernaut steamrollered its opponents as it scored an overwhelming victory in the Delhi Assembly polls on Tuesday, handing the BJP its first electoral defeat since Prime Minister Narendra Modi led the party to power in last year’s general election.

The AAP won 67 seats in the 70-member House, going far beyond the most optimistic exit polls and its own wildest expectations, while the BJP was left bruised in a distant second place with just three seats. The Congress, reeling from a string of defeats since it was routed in the Lok Sabha polls, drew an ignominious blank.

Tens of thousands of jubilant AAP activists celebrated across the capital and in many other cities as the 27-month-old party grabbed a sensational victory with 67 seats -- the highest victory margin for any party in Delhi so far. Although Delhi accounts for only 70 of the 4,120 Assembly seats in the country, the AAP's spectacular showing had its predictable fallout, with Opposition parties and even BJP ally Shiv Sena taking potshots at Modi.

The victory gave AAP, India's youngest political outfit, 96% of seats in a legislature - another record - and a new lease of life after it was written off following its earlier turbulent 49-day stint in Delhi and the later humiliating rout in 2014 LS battle. So stunning and sweeping was Tuesday's victory in what was supposed to be a tough election with the Prime Minister himself leading the BJP's charge that many AAP leaders and workers who had slogged for months broke into tears.

Kejriwal, 46, had teary eyes as AAP colleagues repeatedly hugged him and lifted him in the air, and congratulatory messages poured in from all over the country thick and fast. Outside his home, thousands kept chanting the party's catchy line: "Paanch Saal, Kejriwal!" The Congress simply sank, with its chief campaigner Ajay Maken resigning as the party's general secretary after he finished third in his Sadar Bazar constituency. Most Congress candidates lost by huge margins, one by 95,000 votes.

The BJP suffered far more humiliation with single digit , with its chief ministerial candidate Kiran Bedi, who had been personally picked by Modi, losing to a little known advocate of the AAP. Two of the three BJP winners scraped through by just 5-6,000 votes in contrast to the giant margins scored by AAP candidates.

With the BJP subdued, Modi, who led an aggressive campaign against Kejriwal and called him a "Naxalite" (Maoist) who should be banished to the forests, congratulated the AAP leader and offered his government's full cooperation. The AAP said Kejriwal will take oath as Delhi's chief minister on Saturday, exactly a year after he resigned. Delhi police said it would provide "Z" category security that would include at least 30 commandoes to Kejriwal.

Kejriwal later reached the AAP office in central Delhi where he told boisterous supporters waving party flags and brooms -- the AAP election symbol -- that the AAP sweep was "a victory for truth and honesty". He also urged his supporters not to become arrogant, pointing out that it was arrogance which had first decimated the Congress in Delhi and now the BJP.

"This is incredible. We can't believe it," AAP leader and former Delhi minister Manish Sisodia said. Senior AAP leader Yogendra Yadav called it a victory of proverbial David over Goliath. In remarks directed at Modi, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who had asked people in Delhi to vote for the AAP, said it was a "big defeat for the arrogant and those spreading hate".

Gandhian Anna Hazare added: "The result is a defeat for Narendra Modi. What did the BJP do in the past nine months? The BJP made promises to tackle corruption. Instead they took anti-people, anti-farmer decisions." In Mumbai, Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray termed the AAP sweep a 'tsunami'. "This is a great day for democracy. It was not just a wave. It was a tsunami which swept Delhi.

I agree with Anna Hazare that this is a defeat for Modi, not (Kiran) Bedi."Bedi, whose induction as the BJP's chief ministerial candidate caused fissures in the party, said: "I have not lost. Let the BJP assess why they lost. I gave my very best."