Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party too contested in the recently-concluded Karnataka assembly election. However, it failed to make a mark this time. According to the Election Commission of India website, AAP got 2,25,866 votes with a vote percentage of 0.58. However, NOTA got 2,69,763 votes which is more than AAP’s vote tally. All the party candidates lost their deposits in the seats they contested. Ever since it came to power in Punjab with a landslide margin, the Aam Aadmi Party has contested elections in other states to expand its footprint beyond Delhi. In the Gujarat election, it made an impressive debut by bagging five seats and grabbing nearly 13 per cent of the vote share. The AAP had fielded candidates in 208 out of 224 seats in a bid to gain foothold in southern India. According to a Deccan Herald report, only 72 out of 208 candidates could get 1,000 or more votes. In Chickpet, former Congress spokesperson Brijesh Kalappa, who was contesting on AAP ticket, got just 600 votes. In Bengaluru’s 28 constituencies, the party got 1,000-plus votes in only 16 seats. In Mahadevpura, AAP candidate CR Nataraj got 4,551 votes while it bagged 2,585 votes in Bengaluru South. The party, however, fared better in 19 seats of North Karnataka where it got 3,000 votes in three seats. In its manifesto, the party had given ten guarantees including 80 per cent reservation to locals in jobs, and 33 per cent reservation to women in government jobs if voted to power.
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