The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) was formed out of a popular anti-corruption movement that captured the imagination of many Indians in 2011. The party made its electoral debut in the Delhi assembly elections in December 2013. It won 28 seats with a vote share of 29% and formed a government with outside support from the Congress. In 2015, AAP won an overwhelming 67 out of 70 seats in the Delhi assembly with a vote share of 54%.
How has the AAP evolved during this period?
One way to look at this question is to probe the class background of the party’s candidates. An HT analysis of election affidavits analysed by election watchdog Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) shows an interesting trend. While the average wealth of an AAP candidate in the 2020 elections is still significantly lower than that of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) or Congress candidates, it is higher than what is was in 2015 and 2013.
According to the information provided in ADR’s report, which is based on an analysis of affidavits filed by candidates with the Election Commission of India (ECI), the median wealth of all candidates belonging to the AAP, BJP and Congress is Rs 4.07 crore. This value is Rs 2.7 crore for AAP, Rs 4.6 crore for Congress and Rs 4.7 crore for the BJP. This analysis does not include the alliance partners of either the Congress or the BJP.
The median is a midpoint of the distribution arranged in ascending or descending order. It is considered a better measure of central tendency (as averages are called in statistics) than the mean, when there are extreme values that could skew calculations.
If the candidates of AAP, Congress and BJP are analysed, the number of seats where AAP candidates are the richest has also grown over time. This number was eight in 2013, 16 in 2015 and is 23 in 2020. To be sure, there has been significant churn in the candidates themselves.
Richest candidate in an AC between AAP, BJP and Congress
A comparison with 2013 and 2015 assembly elections shows that the relative difference between the wealth of an AAP candidate this time and one in either 2015 or 2013 is sharper than in the case of candidates of the BJP or the Congress. Interestingly, this difference is actually negative for the Congress — its candidates this time are not as wealthy as its candidates in 2015 or 2013. This has to be understood in the context of the decline in the party’s fortunes. AAP has also seen an increase in the share of candidates in the richest 10% and 20% of all candidates .
Median wealth of candidates and AAP’s share in richest 10% and 20% candidates
What explains the growth in number of relatively richer candidates fielded by AAP?
“AAP was formed out of a social movement, and after they contested their first election, they must have realised the importance of having more economic resources at their disposal to enhance winnability. This sense must have become stronger after the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, with the BJP controlling the ideological narrative in a big way”, said Neelanjan Sircar, assistant professor at Ashoka University and visiting fellow at the Centre for Policy Research. “However, the fact that median wealth of both the BJP and Congress candidates is still much higher compared to the AAP shows that, the propertied elite in Delhi is still not invested in AAP as it is in the BJP and Congress”, he added.
Pragmatism leading to a rise in share of richer candidates in the AAP is supported further if one divides Delhi’s 70 assembly constituencies (ACs) into two parts, the 28 which the AAP won in its first election and the 42 which it could not. AAP did not even finish second in 22 out of the 42 ACs which it could not win in 2013. A comparison of the median wealth of AAP candidates in these three subcategories; 28 which it won in 2013, 18 where it came second and 22 where it finished third or behind; shows that the biggest increase in the median wealth of candidates has been in the third category of ACs. It does not make sense to include 2015 in this analysis because that was a wave election for AAP with the party pretty much winning everything.
Median wealth of AAP candidates in 2013, 2015 and 2020
To be sure, the AAP’s performance was equally bad in all three AC categories in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Even in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, there was not much difference in the AAP’s performance in these three sets of ACs.
Will the AAP’s pragmatism of giving a bigger share of its tickets to the relatively rich pay off in these elections? We will know the answer on 11 February.
