Efforts of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) to open its account in the Karnataka Assembly elections yielded no result again. The party, which received the national party tag recently, got fewer votes than NOTA (None of the Above).
While the party got 0.58% share of the votes, NOTA got 0.69% in the State. A total of 2,69,593 voters disapproved of the candidates fielded by political parties and those who contested as independent candidates.
However, when compared with the previous Assembly elections (2018), the NOTA votes have dropped this time. A total of 3,13,696 people had opted for NOTA in 2018, which was 0.86% of total votes cast.
‘Borrowed ideas’
Prithvi Reddy, the State convener of AAP, said, “People of the State have a mandate for a stable government. They have elected a party. We have to wait and see if the politics of the State will change in the future. We accept the mandate given by the people. We have failed to convert the love and affection the party has received into votes. In the 2023 elections, the AAP changed the political narrative in the State. The schemes that were announced by other political parties on providing free electricity, free bus rides for women and others were borrowed from our party.”
In 2018, the party fielded 28 candidates and received 0.06% of votes (23,468). In elections this year, 208 were in the fray. Anekal Doddaiah, a candidate of the party who contested in Ron received 8,839 votes, which was the highest among all the AAP candidates.
Even in urban pockets like Bengaluru, the party failed to receive the confidence of the people. Prominent faces of the party, including Brijesh Kalappa, Mohan Dasari, Mathai K. and Shanthala Damle, were defeated without getting a significant number of votes.
