Aam Aadmi Party

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is an Indian political party that was established in 2012. It describes itself as a political alternative to the major Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Indian National Congress (INC) political parties. With a majority in the Delhi Legislative Assembly since the 2015 election, it has effectively restricted the BJP to a few seats while effectively eliminating the Congress from the state administration. In the 2020 elections, it was able to maintain its supermajority.

The AAP was officially established in November 2012 as a result of a disagreement between campaigners Arvind Kejriwal and Anna Hazare over whether or not to politicise the popular India Against Corruption movement, which had been calling for the passage of a Jan Lokpal Bill since 2011. Hazare wanted that the movement remain politically apolitical, while Kejriwal believed that the failure of the agitation path required participation in politics on a direct level.

The party made its political debut in the 2013 Delhi Legislative Assembly election, when it finished second only to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The AAP formed a partnership with the Indian National Congress to create a short-lived administration that lasted just 49 days, during which time Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal resigned because the Jan Lokpal Bill was unable to be presented in the legislature. In the subsequent elections in 2015, the AAP won 67 of the 70 seats in the assembly, reducing the BJP to only three seats and thus eliminating the Congress Party from the legislature. Despite winning 62 seats in the Delhi Legislative Assembly election in 2020, the AAP had lost all seven of the city's constituencies to the BJP in the national elections held in April of same year.