Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)'s elevation as a national party just a decade after its inception was aided ironically by its performance in the Gujarat election. Finishing third behind the Congress with a tally of just five seats, AAP polled 12.97 per cent votes in last year's polls. This was more than double the required six per cent after it polled 6.67 in Goa and swept to power in Delhi and Punjab to meet the Election Commission's benchmark.
A fledgling, 10-year-old AAP's upgrade coincided with the eclipse of the 1925-born vintage Communist Party of India (CPI), which lost its national party status and was derecognised as a state party in West Bengal and Odisha while remaining a state party in three other states.
Though downgraded, the CPI is the only party in India that has consistently fought all elections since 1952 on one symbol - ears of corn and a sickle. All other parties, except the BJP (lotus), have forfeited their symbols and acquired new ones because of splits or mergers. (When the CPI split in 1964, the CPI-Marxist chose a new symbol - the hammer, sickle and star - leaving the CPI symbol intact) From 1952 to 1962, the CPI was consistently India's main opposition party in Lok Sabha. Its galaxy of leaders - Hiren Mukherjee, Indrajit Gupta, SA Dange, Homi Daji, SM Banerjee (Lok Sabha) and Bhupesh Gupta (Rajya Sabha) - left a huge imprint on parliamentary discourse.
In 1969, though it had lost its prima donna status to the Swatantra Party (44 seats) and BJP's precursor Bharatiya Jan Sangh (35), the CPI with its 24 seats, along with the DMK's 25, provided the cushion to Indira Gandhi who lost 53 members to Congress (O) when the Grand Old Party first split. The Congress government survived on the crutches of these two parties. Such was CPI's clout that in the 1971 polls the Congress left some 44 seats to it "in adjustment" so that the ruling party's bid for power was bolstered.
In 2019, the CPI won just two Lok Sabha seats, one more than AAP whose sole MP Bhagwant Mann quit after becoming Chief Minister of Punjab. The Sangrur seat was snapped up by Simranjit Singh Mann of the splinter party Shiromani Akali Dal (Amritsar), who defeated Punjab's ruling party, AAP.
So, on the day it acquired national party status, AAP does not have representation in Lok Sabha. It has 10 MPs in Rajya Sabha, thanks to its overwhelming numbers in the Delhi and Punjab assemblies.
The party may make it back to Lok Sabha if it wins the Jalandhar election on May 13. Despite being Punjab's ruling party since March 2022, AAP could not find a suitable candidate from its ranks. It fielded Sushil Rinku a day after he quit the Congress. The Jalandhar bypoll was held to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Congress veteran Santokh Singh Chaudhary, who died a day after he participated in Rahul Gandhi's Bharat Jodo Yatra in January. The Congress has fielded his widow Karanjit Kaur.
The de-recognition of the Trinamool Congress and the NCP as national parties sees two offshoots of the Congress, founded in 1998 and 1999, whose leaders Mamata Banerjee and Sharad Pawar have often been seen as prime ministerial contenders, shrink to regional entities.
Like AAP, Trinamool too had ventured outside its home turf. But it did not manage the requisite six per cent votes, and is now recognised as a state party only in West Bengal and Tripura. The NCP, despite winning seats in Nagaland, where, apart from Maharashtra, it is a state party now, failed to retain its niche position due to its poor performance in Goa, Manipur and Meghalaya.
The National People's Party (NPP) led by Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad Sangma (the son of Purno Agitok Sangma, who along with Sharad Pawar and Tariq Anwar had revolted against Sonia Gandhi to launch NCP) is recognised as a national party along with the BJP, Congress, CPI (M) and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP).
The process of derecognising national parties was initiated by the Election Commission soon after Narendra Modi's huge victory in 2014, based on the parties' electoral performance. Besides NCP, Trinamool and CPI, the BSP too was served show-cause notice. Following representations from these parties, the poll body opted for a less stringent view and amended rules, enlarging the period from just one election to two elections. The BSP's performance in terms of votes polled across several states in the 2019 Lok Sabha election excluded it from this exercise. The NCP, Trinamool and CPI were found ineligible in 2019 in terms of the proportion of votes polled and state-wide presence. The NCP's poor showing in the Northeast and Trinamool's inability to expand its footprint beyond West Bengal, where it has a massive majority, contributed to its downgrade.
Among other parties which lost state party status is the Bharat Rashtriya Samithi (BRS) led by Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao (KCR). His party was found to be ineligible in Andhra Pradesh and is recognised as a state party only in Telangana. This, a few months after he renamed his Telangana Rashtra Samithi as BRS and launched his national ambition of forging an anti-BJP, non-Congress alliance for 2024.
The Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) led by former Prime Minister Chaudhary Charan Singh's grandson Jayant Chaudhary lost its status as a state party in Uttar Pradesh. Charan Singh's party, Bharatiya Kranti Dal (BKD) ruled UP in the 1970s. Renamed as Bharatiya Lok Dal (BLD) after seven parties, including BKD, Swatantra Party, Utkal Congress and Socialist Party merged in 1974 to provide a united opposition to Indira Gandhi's Congress, its symbol, "chakra haldhar", had been adopted as the common symbol of the Janata, which ousted the Congress for the first time at the Centre in 1977.
Though AAP has zero representation in Lok Sabha today despite acquiring national status, it has the advantage of being a party (apart from CPI-M, CPI) on which the BJP's charge of dynastic politics does not stick. Two senior Delhi ministers, including Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, stuck in jail as undertrials somewhat dents AAP's credentials as the successor of the India Against Corruption movement. AAP convenor and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has described the Election Commission's decision as "nothing less than a miracle". In the run-up to 2024, national status adds to AAP's sheen. But the road ahead is steep and slippery.
(Shubhabrata Bhattacharya is a retired Editor and a public affairs commentator.)
Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author.