The Aam Aadmi Party on Monday won two of the three seats it had contested in the Assembly by-elections in Punjab and Gujarat, gaining a modicum of succour after the February rout in Delhi.
Party national convener Arvind Kejriwal projected his party as a fighting alternative to the Congress, which he called the BJP’s "puppet". He denied speculation that he was eyeing a Rajya Sabha seat.
The AAP's Gopal Italia retained Gujarat’s Visavadar seat with a margin of 17,554 votes over the BJP. The Congress came a distant third with 5,501 votes.
Bhupendra Bhayani, the previous MLA from the AAP, had defected to the BJP in 2023. Kejriwal's party had initially expected support from the Congress, having earlier supported the Congress candidate in a Gujarat by-election last year.
The AAP retained Ludhiana (West) in Punjab with a margin of 10,637 votes over the Congress.
"Winning with double the margin in Visavadar shows that people in Gujarat are fed up with 30 years of BJP misrule…. People have shown faith in the AAP's policies, its work in Punjab and Delhi, and its leadership," Kejriwal told reporters.
Contrasting the AAP with its former ally, he said: "In 2022, the Congress won 17 seats and the AAP five in Gujarat. In the last three years, five Congress MLAs and one from the AAP have defected to the BJP.
"The Congress lost all five seats to the BJP in the by-elections last year.... It shows that in Gujarat, the fight is between the BJP and the AAP."
Kejriwal added: "Everyone saw how the Congress helped the BJP in Delhi (in the February Assembly polls). In Visavadar, they used all their might to back the BJP…. The Congress's top leadership is in the BJP’s pocket and is their puppet.
"Only the AAP, with its full might, resolve and resources, is trying to save every state from the BJP. All good activists of the Congress must come to the AAP."
Asked whom the party would send to the Rajya Sabha in place of Sanjeev Arora, who has won the by-election from Punjab, Kejriwal replied: "I won’t go to the Rajya Sabha. The political affairs committee will decide whom to send."
"We won big in Visavadar for three reasons. People were fed up as the last two MLAs had defected to the BJP, and they did not have an MLA for the last one-and-a-half years (because an election petition from the BJP had been pending)," AAP Gujarat-in-charge Gopal Rai told The Telegraph.
"Second, only the AAP candidate was seen as someone who would not defect…. Third, we started the campaign soon after the defeat in Delhi."