Despite high hope, AAP fails to make impact in Haryana

Chandigarh, May 18: Even as it registered a surprising results in Punjab bagging four seats, the Aam Aadmi Party put up a dismal show in neighbouring

, which happens to be the home state of party chief

.

While AAP sprang a surprise in Punjab with its candidates defeating veteran leaders including those from Patiala and Faridkot seats, in Haryana where it was expected to do well in the wake of the party's performance in the last Delhi Assembly polls, it not only failed to live up to the expectations and but all its candidates also lost their security deposits.

The AAP had fielded candidates, most of them political greenhorns, in all 10 Lok Sabha seats in Haryana, but the party failed to open account and its candidates finished at fourth and fifth positions. Yogendra Yadav, one of the party's most prominent faces, contested the polls from Gurgaon constituency.

However, he finished a poor fourth bagging a total of 79,452 votes. Even in Hisar, the home constituency of Kejriwal, bureaucrat-turned-AAP nominee Y S Khyalia garnered just 28,490 votes and finished at number fifth spot. In Bhiwani-Mahendergarh constituency too, AAP candidate Lalit Aggarwal ended up at fifth spot while in Faridabad, the party candidate Purshottam Dagar finished at fourth spot.

In Rohtak, AAP candidate Naveen Jaihind, who was expected to give good fight to sitting Congress MP Deepinder Singh Hooda, managed just 46,759 votes and ended up at the fourth spot. Notably, Arvind Kejriwal, who was then a member of the 'Team Anna Hazare', had started his campaign in Haryana during the Hisar Lok Sabha bypolls in 2011.

After AAP was formed, he toured the state on few occasions, vigorously raising the issues of corruption and dynastic politics. While BJP, which won seven of the eight Lok Sabha seats it contested from Haryana and doubled its vote share to 34.7 per cent as compared to 17.21 per cent in 2009 when it failed to win any seat, the AAP managed to get a vote share of 4.2 per cent in the 2014 elections.

Meanwhile, a senior leader of AAP from Haryana said that the party would analyse the reasons why it failed to win any seat from Haryana and rework its strategy as the Assembly polls in the state were due in October.

PTI