New Delhi, May 17 (PTI): Stung by the dismal performance not only in Delhi, but also across the country in the Lok Sabha polls, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) today admitted that its decision to quit the Delhi government in a hurry was a mistake.
"This was the first national election for the Aam Aadmi Party and there are some positive and negative indications out from it.
"As Arvind (Kejriwal) has earlier admitted that quitting Delhi was a mistake made and we could have communicated with the people in a better way. We will all learn from the mistakes made. We will discuss it within ourselves and go to people again and see how can we perform in future," Yogendra Yadav said while addressing a press conference at the party office.
The AAP leader said that the results were "shocking" as the party could not win a single seat in Delhi nor in some other constituencies, including Varanasi, where the party had put all its forces together.
"It is a shock to us. We did not get results as expected. The fact remains that we could not win one of the seven seats in Delhi and it has upset us. The party had built high hopes in Varanasi as we had converted that election into a contest and defeat has also upset us," he said.
He said that despite the defeat, AAP has increased its vote share from 30 to 33 per cent in Delhi and Congress has become irrelevant in state politics.
Party leader Manish Sisodia, however, added that there was a silver lining in the defeat, despite the lacklustre performance.
The party had fielded 443 candidates across the country, but has only managed to win four seats in Punjab and could not open any account in Delhi. Its party leaders Arvind Kejriwal and Kumar Vishwas who had taken on Narendra Modi from Varanasi and Rahul Gandhi from Amethi respectively, lost the electoral battles.
"Although, we have not been able to win a single seat in Delhi, we are able to win 4 seats in Punjab. Now we are a main party in two states in terms of vote share" Sisodia added.
"The Punjab politics is now a tri-polar contest where we are a major player now," Yadav added. The AAP leader said that despite the party's candidates polling over 1.5 crore across the country it has not been able to become a national party. "For becoming a national party we want six per cent of votes in four different states. We have managed to do that in Delhi and Punjab, but found it difficult in other states," Yadav said.