New Delhi: Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party's surge in Delhi barely a year after its formation is reminiscent of the victory of AGP and TDP in Assam and Andhra Pradesh respectively three decades ago.
In 1983, the late N T Rama Rao's TDP stormed to power within nine months of its formation, forming the first non-Congress government in Andhra Pradesh. Rama Rao, the Telugu superstar who used to play mythological roles in movies, exploited the Telugu pride card to the hilt in the wake of Rajiv Gandhi publicly insulting Chief Minister T Anjaiah.
Incidentally, TDP also achieved the rare distinction of being the first regional party to become the main Opposition party in the Lok Sabha in the polls held in the wake of assassination of Indira Gandhi.
While BJP had won only two seats all over the country, TDP won 33 sests from Andhra Pradesh. The party has ruled Andhra Pradesh twice from 1983 to 1989 and then from 1994 to 2004.
Two years later, in Assam the newly-formed AGP came to power under Prafulla Kumar Mahanta on the foreigners issue which had been rattling the Assamese people.
Mahanta became the youngest Chief Minister in the country at the age of 33 in the wake of the six-year peaceful democratic movement in Assam. In the December 1985 assembly polls, it won 67 of the 126 seats apart from capturing seven of the 14 Lok Sabha seats.
Aam Aadmi Party's 45-year-old Kejriwal has done virtually the impossible by turning the polls in the national capital into a triangular affair and relegating Congress to the third position.
He achieved this feat virtually within a year of its formation in November, 2012 by raising the issues of transparency. The key agenda items of the AAP are Jan Lokpal bil, right to reject, right to recall and political decentralisation.
A former Income Tax official, Kejriwal came into prominence, especially in Delhi, when Anna Hazare launched an agitation on the Lokpal issue. AAP has already declared that it is not a Delhi-centric party.
"After the Delhi polls you will see us being more active outside Delhi.... We certainly plan to go nationwide for the Lok Sabha polls," Kejriwal's party has said.
