Time for AAP to recalibrate strategy for 2027 Assembly poll Ruchika M Khanna

The Aam Aadmi Party’s win at the hustings in the Tarn Taran bypoll may have helped the state’s ruling party retain its winning streak in the Assembly bypoll, but the win may not be indicative of the outcome in the next 2027 elections due in 15 months.

There appears to be near unison in AAP that this win is as much, if not more, of the candidate, Harmeet Singh Sandhu, as the party, which used all resources at its disposal to win the polls.

The party has retained the seat, taking its tally of MLAs in the 117-member Vidhan Sabha to 94, but it faced allegations of misuse of government machinery, with party poll strategists being accused of having used “saam, daam, dand, bhed” to secure the seat, which fell vacant upon the demise of AAP MLA Kashmir Singh Sohal.

The SSP of Tarn Taran, Ravjot Kaur Grewal, was also suspended last week on allegations of playing a partisan role when the Model Code of Conduct was in place. The Election Commission of India had taken a serious view of her role in the registration of nine FIRs in four different places.

During the past three and a half years, of the seven Assembly bypolls held, AAP has won in six constituencies. But the lowest vote percentage that the party secured in these bypolls was in Tarn Taran at 36.23 per cent. The highest vote percentage it secured was in Chabbewal last year, with AAP getting 61.41 per cent votes. Even in 2022, when AAP had won the seat, the vote percentage of the party was 40.8. Thus, this byelection results now may not be a time for celebration, but for recalibration of its poll strategies before the next Vidhan Sabha elections.

Sandhu, an import from the Shiromani Akali Dal, also had his own teams on the ground working to mobilise voters in his support. He has already represented the constituency thrice in the Vidhan Sabha, and has now managed to win for the fourth time, and his personal rapport with the voters helped in his win. The other major factor for the AAP win was the complete decimation of the Congress in the Assembly, and the Congress votes are believed to have drifted towards AAP.

While the AAP national convener Arvind Kejriwal and state party chief Aman Arora have called the win a vote for the AAP government’s development agenda and honest governance, the ruling party, during the course of campaign, had not raised the issue of corruption. The arrest of DIG Harcharan Singh Bhullar by the CBI, with a huge stash of cash and jewellery in October had cast its shadow on the narrative of honest governance in Punjab.

Nevertheless, the Delhi leadership, taking a backseat, and allowing CM Bhagwant Mann to remain as the most prominent face of the campaign, seemed to have stopped the opposition narrative of Delhi leadership taking over the reins of the state. By giving a winning margin of 12,091 votes, it seems that the anti- Delhi leadership narrative was successfully tackled by the party pollsters. These pollsters, mostly analysts from Delhi, had stayed put in the constituency monitoring each day and political situation and reacting accordingly.