AAP’s political gambit in Delhi
Hindustan TimesThe Aam Aadmi Party’s decision to pick Atishi, 43, to succeed Arvind Kejriwal as the Delhi chief minister does not come as a surprise since she had become the face of the government after the latter’s arrest in the Delhi liquor case in March. New Delhi, Sep 17 : AAP leader and Delhi CM-designate Atishi stakes claim to form the new government before Lieutenant Governor V K Saxena, at LG Secretariat in New Delhi on Tuesday. The choice of a woman CM — even though this is a holding job as Atishi herself has put it — may resonate with women voters in Delhi: The last Congress CM of Delhi, Sheila Dikshit, was a popular figure for most of her 15 years in office, and the record of leaders such as J Jayalalithaa and Mamata Banerjee suggests that gender can influence electoral choices. But Kejriwal’s politics of victimhood did not yield political dividends in the recent general election — the AAP failed to win a single seat despite an alliance with the Congress.