AAP — the party for all people in Punjab

Among the five States that went to polls, if the outcome in Uttar Pradesh will prove critical in terms of bolstering the BJP’s ambition of a third term at the Centre, the outcome of Punjab will be of equal importance in terms of throwing up a possible challenger to the BJP in the Lok Sabha elections.

While the mere fact that the AAP won a majority was in itself not a great surprise, the nature of its victory represents the churning in the State and a deep desire to cling to an alternative. This is also borne out by the piece on Angry Punjab that led most social sections to vote in favour of the AAP.

When a party posts such a massive victory, the question as to what its social base is becomes somewhat redundant. For one thing, the winning party receives votes from all sections. Secondly it cuts into the votes of all other contestants (see Table comparing movement of social sections from 2017 to 2022) and thirdly its social base appears flat in the sense that from diverse social sections, the winning party receives support in a more or less uniform proportion.