General Comments (Country wide and not

specific to Delhi)
These comments are based on reflections on AAPs performance in the recently
concluded Lok Sabha elections based on my own observations and those collected
from various discussions, portals, blogs etc on the internet.
1

Focus on developing strong organizational structure at grass root level in chosen

constituencies
Funds and resources will always be an issue with our party in comparison to
the conventional parties and hence we need to utilize them efficiently and
optimally. Thus, we need to identify potential constituencies where we
should focus and channelize our attention and efforts. Typically, these
constituencies should be the one where BJP is not on a strong ground but is
still able to hold on due to lack of serious opposition except for Congress.
Since Congress is currently in doldrums, we should utilize the opportunity to
position ourselves as a more serious and viable option in such
constituencies.
Just to illustrate the point, we can have a look at the Gwalior constituency
where, despite the Modi wave, the BJP candidate barely scraped through. We
need to identify such constituencies and start working aggressively there.

Emerge as the alternative to Congress as the only party that can seriously
challenge BJP
Congress is in serious leadership crisis, perhaps even worse than the one that
they faced after 1996 or 1991. It is therefore important that we seize this
opportunity so that people start looking upto AAP as the main opposition
party to BJP. This will be a challenging task given that we dont have the
organizational set up and volunteer base and we are bit handicapped in terms
of funds available, but this is one of the key areas where we should have a
lot of focus. A good starting point could be Punjab, where we have a good
foothold.

Stop replying/justifying each and every action

Instead of justifying and replying to each and every question from the media,
we should adopt a policy of deflection and neglect. Instead we should use
the opportunity (when media approaches us and asks us any question) to
highlight our achievements, goals and objectives. We should let people judge
our actions rather than we justifying and explaining it for them. This will
help us in avoiding unnecessary discussions.

Decision to fight Lok Sabha Elections is justified by the results in Punjab

Theres no guarantee that AAP would have been aware of its strong appeal
throughout Punjab had they not decided on fighting every seat there. This

decision also helped in discovering new local leaders such as Sh. Bhagwant
Mann and Sh. HS Phoolka etc. This definitely helps in spreading out AAPs
wings and helps in alleviating the amount of workload on the current
leadership. Few more hands at the top is always more than welcome.
Similar arguments apply to our performance in Haryana and Maharashtra,
where we were more confident of a strong showing. We expected good
results from these states but results were contradictory. There is no guarantee
that concentrated efforts in few constituencies in these states would have
changed the election results. In other words, countrywide participation in
these elections a) helped us in discovering new support areas, b) helped us
in identifying our strengths and weaknesses, c) helped us in spreading our
wings to newer states.
1

Expanding beyond Anti-corruption

Now that Congress is out of power, corruption cannot remain as the main
issue of our party to entice and attract people towards it. It is not that
corruption is no longer the issue, but we will have to wait and watch BJPs
steps and counter them on the issue of corruption as and when such situation
arises. But till then we cannot lay lying down. Instead we need to identify
other issues that resonate more readily with people. Issues that resonate a
hope of secure and better India should be focused on (for eg. Economy, Job
market, Targeting inflation etc).
The results of 2014 elections also confirm that people gave more or equal
weightage to factors like stable government, good, strong and decisive
governance in comparison to corruption. This is not say that BJP will ensure
and deliver on its promises but it created this perception amongst the voters
and they lapped it more readily in comparison to anti-corruption pitch by
AAP. In this context, it is also important to note that identifying and
associating itself with issues other than corruption will also broaden AAPs
overall perspective.
Perhaps it will be better to start at the local grass root level, starting from
blocks and villages to city, district and state level. In any case, we wont be
having national elections in 5 years, so its better to focus and strengthen
ourselves at lower levels by identifying and associating with local issues.

Stick to our main goal of ensuring good governance

And we can and should do this irrespective of whether we are in power or
not. As long as AAP is able to force BJP to provide effective and honest
governance to the people of the country, by keeping a good check on them
and their policies, we are doing our job perfectly fine and are also building
our platform and support base. So let us keep an eye on key ministries and
their functioning.
As a side note, we should also support and appreciate the correct steps taken
by the government. Opposing just for the sake opposition is lame and useless
and that is what conventional parties have been doing for ages.
Now that BJP is in power, we can use them to bring peoples attention to
important issues (that we have always been raising), for eg. by issuing

statements that we expect that BJP, with clear majority and trust of the
people, will now bring strong Lokpal, CBI freedom, electoral reforms etc.
1

What went right in Punjab.

Apart from anti-incumbency against SAD-BJP govt and lack of serious
opposition, what worked in our favour was the fact we focused on local
issues not addressed by the SAD govt in power. These issues, like tackling
drug menace, were Punjab specific issues and it worked in our favor that we
concentrated on them (instead of just anti-corruption). In a way this
reinstated the strategy we used in Delhi state elections last year, where we
had combined other factors with a focus on Delhi specific issues.
Thus, biggest takeaway from our stupendous success in Punjab is to
recognize that we need to focus on microscopic level more and this should
form the core of our future strategy, specially in light of the fact that there
wont be any national election for at least 5 years.

Use of Technology and a concrete Social Media related plan

It is highly imperative that we have a concrete plan to deploy our
Social Media related activities in an organized manner. We should invite
volunteers to take up this cause and provide them an able leadership
that can ensure smooth and efficient functioning, so that efforts can be
channelized in an organized way resulting in optimal results.
One of the salient features of the BJPs election campaign was the use
of social media and Information Technology. Actually, AAP did a pretty
good job at that as well, though limited funds and resources limited us
in comparison to BJP. Still we are in a much better shape than Congress
and other regional parties which lag far behind. Thus we need to use
this position to our advantage and also continue and consolidate our
presence on internet. The young voters who have voted for BJP in this
election have done so due to hope and also due to lack of any
alternatives. They are not amongst the steadfast supporters of BJP and
thus if BJP fails to deliver, we should be their automatic choice. This
means that we need to keep up our presence on the net, a place which
is nowadays flocked by most Indian youth and hence the best way to
connect to them and get our message through.
Thus we need to continue having Google hangouts (not just by Arvind
but also by other leaders). We should in fact increase the frequency of
such one on one interactions and advertise them heavily. This can be
done through our twitter handles (AAPs main twitter handle and twitter
handle of local chapters and offices and those of individual leaders),
facebook pages (through all AAP related accounts) and through our
blogs and other such avenues. We should also keep posting interviews,
viewpoints, vision and speeches on youtube and link them through
various avenues. Similar activities should be carried out through AAPs
official blogs and also through the ones of AAP supporters.

BJP/RSS has several websites for eg. NitiCentral to push through their
agenda and make them more visible in the e-media. We should also be
doing the same aggressively to make our presence felt on the internet
and also to reach and connect to the people.

Introspection
It might not be a bad idea to ask for volunteer and voter feedbacks, in
terms of what they thought went well and what was lacking during our
LokSabha election campaign. This will provide them a chance to tell us
their concerns and will also show that AAP is sincere about listening
and accommodating every voice and also in terms of their commitment
to the betterment of people. It might help us in gauging the mood of
the public (and volunteers) and will help us in planning our future
activities.

Specific to Upcoming Delhi Elections

Goal:
1. Reach maximum people in each constituency. Visiting each voter at least once is
absolutely necessary but if we can visit them twice that will be fantastic.
2. Make the voters aware of our achievements during our brief tryst with governance.
We need to focus on what we can bring and brought to the table after being elected,
instead of focusing our energies on negatives of Cong/BJP.

Method:
1. Have detailed Planning: Assign volunteers to each assembly constituency and
provide them the targets for door to door campaigning (how many voters they need to
cover, how many times, on what dates and what message they need to convey).
2. Identify what constituencies are our stronghold, where we are weak and where things
are uncertain. And focus our energies first on the constituencies where we are strong
and then on the ones where things are uncertain for all parties.
3. Have a positive campaign: Focus on issues and not on personalities. We need to
remember that Congress is a non-player and hence we should stop focusing on their
evils. The goal of dethroning Congress and making people aware of their misdeeds is
over. Now we need to tell people what we can do and that is what should be the
underlining agenda of our poll campaign.
Recent history has shown us that targeting individuals and running a negative campaign
has not worked. In 2004, BJP targeted Sonia Gandhi and her foreign origins and ran a
highly individualistic campaign against her, instead of targeting congress based on
issues. Similarly, they focused too much on Manmohan Singh as weak PM, instead of
highlighting policy failures of his govt. Even in these elections, too much focus was on
Narendra Modi, the person. Not that this is the only reason, but combined with other

factors, it is clear that negative campaigning, aimed at individuals, does not go down
well with junta in general, especially when their image is not entirely bad.
4. Regroup, consolidate and motivate leadership and volunteers: We should not sulk
in the aftermath of the lok sabha elections. Instead this is the time when AAP leadership
should regorup themselves and start an enthusiastic Delhi centric campaign. This is
important to keep the motivation levels of the volunteers high.
5. Identification of Core issues for Delhites: We won the Punjab lok sabha elections
because we were able to identify and focus on issues that concern and resonate with the
folks of punjab. We need to do the same elsewhere. Anti corruption gave us the
platform, but we cant let it be our only agenda. We need to change people's perception
that AAP is only an anti-corruption party. India is plagued with so many issues and we
need to broaden ourselves and emerge as a complete party, which people look upon as
an alternative to BJP. The platform is already built in Delhi, we just need to build on the
same.