AAP Drops Attacks on Modi, Shifts Focus to Governance After 2019 Lok Sabha Loss

The Aam Aadmi Party has changed its approach ahead of the Delhi assembly election, according to party leaders who said the shift followed its defeat in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. Arvind Kejriwal, the party’s president and Delhi’s Chief Minister, has avoided targeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi and has instead said AAP would “cooperate” with the BJP-led Union government.

A change of strategy

A senior AAP leader said attacking Modi and the BJP directly would bring the party no gain. “We have to learn from our mistakes,” the leader said, stressing that the coming contest was an assembly election. According to this leader, the main conclusion drawn after the 2019 setback was that the party should concentrate on governance and on telling voters what its Delhi government had done, rather than going after the BJP and its leaders.

The new tone was visible when Kejriwal met Modi, invited him to see the mohalla clinics and schools run by the Delhi government, and said his administration would study whether the Centre’s Ayushman Bharat scheme could be combined with Delhi’s own health scheme. Kejriwal also posted on Twitter that he had congratulated Modi on the Lok Sabha win.

Background

AAP grew out of the anti-corruption movement of 2011, when Kejriwal campaigned on the streets against corruption and promised a more decentralised style of government. Party leaders conceded that five years in office had taught them hard lessons. After a strong showing in the Delhi assembly, the party lost in Punjab, Goa and the MCD, and faced defections, arrests and occasional raids, while Kejriwal repeatedly accused the BJP of obstructing his government.

Calculations and caution

An AAP MLA argued that the party’s legislators were popular and that a divided Congress, which he said had taken AAP votes in the Delhi elections the party lost, worked in its favour. He said the party hoped Muslim and Dalit voters, whom he put at 30 per cent of Delhi’s electorate, would back AAP again. He added that it was too early for optimism, since the BJP and Amit Shah had so far concentrated on Haryana and Maharashtra and things could change quickly once they turned to Delhi.

What happened next

In the 2020 Delhi assembly election, AAP won 62 seats and the BJP 8, and Arvind Kejriwal remained Chief Minister.

See also: Aam Aadmi Party and election coverage.

Originally published on 23 October 2019. Rewritten on 9 October 2026.

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