Punjab Election: AAP's phenomenal result was at the cost of the incumbent Congress. File
Arvind Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi Party, in its second attempt, has taken Punjab, giving the eight-year-old outfit its second state after Delhi.
"This shows AAP is the natural and national replacement of the Congress," said Raghav Chadha, who ran the Punjab campaign for his party, in an exclusive interview to NDTV.
By 9 am, it was clear that Punjab had embraced AAP, which placed second in the last election five years ago, defying several exit polls that had then forecast it as the winner. This time around, all exit polls gave AAP the clear lead in Punjab.
"People of this nation have said Kejriwal is not a terrorist. He is a true patriot," the Aam Aadmi Party chief said in his party's victory speech.
"Congratulations to Bhagwant Singh Mann on becoming Chief Minister. Such a majority scares me too, people have placed their trust in us. We want to fulfill their expectations," Mr Kejriwal.
"To everyone watching me on TV, revolution has come to Delhi and now Punjab. Now is the time to bring the revolution across the country. (Congress's Charanjit Singh) Channi has been defeated by a candidate who works in a mobile repair shop," the Delhi Chief Minister said.
In fact, the party's phenomenal result (89 of 117 seats based on leads at 11 am) was at the cost of the incumbent Congress, which, at 10.30 am, had crashed to 13 seats compared to 77 in 2017.
The Congress made a last-minute change to its Chief Minister in November, replacing Amarinder Singh, its most senior leader in Punjab, with Charanjit Singh Channi, a Dalit leader with a mass base. The move was seen at the time as a clever manoeuvre by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi - Amarinder Singh was reported to be unpopular with both MLAs and with voters, who saw him as inaccessible and out of sync with the needs of his state.
Mr Channi was installed as the head of the government in the face of much public resistance from Navjot Singh Sidhu, the fast-talking former cricketer, who wanted the top job for himself. It took several interventions by Rahul Gandhi to rein in Navjot Sidhu; it was only in February that Rahul Gandhi announced Mr Channi as the party's presumptive Chief Minister; Mr Sidhu was by his side at the time of that declaration but the in-fighting had done its damage.
Arvind Kejriwal said Chief Ministerial candidate was Bhagwant Singh Mann, a decision that he said was based on a phone-in survey conducted by AAP among its supporters. The intense campaign for the border state saw AAP - and Arvind Kejriwal - accused by senior Opposition leaders of fraternising with secessionists who want an independent state of Khalistan. Opposition leaders said that Punjab's security would be compromised if AAP was given charge of the state.
None of that appears to have mattered in the slightest to the voters. The scale of AAP's victory will embolden the party to claim Arvind Kejriwal should be the leader of an anti-BJP league for the next general election in two years. "Kejriwal will be Prime Minister," said AAP's Raghav Chadha, emphasising that the party has proved that its governance model in Delhi is winning over other states.