Will AAP limit itself to Delhi?

Moments after being sworn in, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal sent out a message that the Aam Aadmi Party was not spreading its wings, at least not yet.

Speaking from a decorated podium on the Ram Lila Maidan, he assured Delhiites that he was here to stay, and for the next five years, was keen on consolidating the party’s gains in the national capital. The AAP’s spectacular victory has fuelled speculation that the party will enter the electoral battle in Punjab, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. Even as the party workers seem ready to replicate the Delhi model elsewhere, the AAP convener seems less inclined to do so. “Our people have been saying we will contest polls in other States, I see arrogance there...” he said.

There was more evidence of Mr. Kejriwal’s reluctance to contest the Assembly elections in other States when he said his own party had suffered defeat in the Lok Sabha polls because it got carried away by its debut in the 2013 Delhi Assembly elections. “The Congress lost because of arrogance, the BJP, which won the Lok Sabha elections just nine months ago, also lost now because of arrogance. When we won 28 seats last year, somewhere we were arrogant, too, and went ahead with the Lok Sabha polls ... That was our punishment, and we should take lessons from this,” he said.

Senior AAP functionaries, however, told

The Hindu that the party was working on its campaign for the Punjab Assembly elections due in 2017. Strategists who helped script the Delhi success would soon be moved to Punjab, AAP sources said.

“We are not eyeing the Bihar and U.P. Assembly polls, but are very keen on contesting in Punjab and confident of doing well. Our performance there in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls was good. We have four MPs from the State, and our voting percentage has been significant, too. Even in those constituencies where we lost, the margins of defeat were narrow,” said a senior functionary. Ruling out a tie-up with other parties, the functionary said: “We will go it alone, and our issues will be corruption and drug addiction.”

As for the feelers put out by Nitish Kumar of the Janata Dal(U) and Mamata Banerjee of the Trinamool Congress, the functionary said: “We are not looking at alliances anywhere.”