The trends available so far indicate that the voters of Delhi have shed their apathy and indifference and have created a new record turnout. Elections are occasions for routine alteration of governments and parties. Aam Aadmi Party turned its very first election into a quest for alternative kind of politics. With today’s polling, Aam Aadmi Party has concluded an extraordinary election campaign. Un
like the established political parties, Aam Aadmi Party began its campaign nearly six months ago. It announced most of its candidates more than two months before the date of polling. This campaign will be remembered for many firsts. This was the first experiment of large scale “crowd-sourcing” of clean money for honest politics. Aam Aadmi Party set a target for Rupees 20 crore donation, accounted for every single donation, and closed the donations once it achieved its target.This was one of the first experiments in establishing a transparent and consultative process of the selection of candidates. This was the first time a political party promised to withdraw any tainted candidate and actually lived up to its promise by withdrawing a candidate. This was the first time a political party issued constituency-level manifestos for each of the constituencies it is contesting. The outcome of this extraordinary campaign is still awaited. A journey like this is its own reward. Aam Aadmi Party entered politics at a point when people had lost faith in politics, when politics had become a dirty word. No one believed that elections could be contested honestly. Thus Aam Aadmi Party may have contributed in its small way to restoring the spirit of volunteerism and idealism in politics. The credit for this must go to the tens of thousands of volunteers from within Delhi and thousands of volunteers outside Delhi and outside India who gave up their home, career and comfort for this larger cause of nation building. Aam Aadmi Party salutes their untiring effort. Aam Aadmi Party takes this occasion to thank the Election Commission for conducting the election and for being proactively non-partisan in the conduct of elections. Today we received some complaints from a few constituencies about large-scale deletion of genuine voters, non-functioning EVMs, and about partisan behavior of the polling staff. These complaints were especially serious from the New Delhi constituency. We are confident that the Election Commission will look into these complaints seriously, punish the guilty, and rectify the mistakes.
