Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president Sukhbir Singh Badal today while congratulating SAD-BJP candidate Manjinder Singh Sirsa for his convincing win in the Rajouri Garden byepoll, said the combine had demolished AAP on its home turf and that the loss heralded the end of AAP as a political entity in the country.In a statement here, Mr Badal said the result was a referendum on the policies of AAP in Delhi and had set the tone for the complete defeat of AAP in the forthcoming elections to the Delhi municipal corporation.The SAD president said what was most pertinent was that AAP candidate Harjit Singh had lost his security deposit. "Former AAP mla from Rajouri Garden - Jarnail Singh who resigned from this seat to contest elections from Lambi constituency in Punjab had earlier won this seat by a margin of 10,000 votes. As Rajouri Garden is a Sikh dominated seat the severe erosion in the vote share of AAP is a clear indication of the party's current popularity amongst the Sikh community", he added.
While congratulating Sirsa for putting AAP in back gear, Mr Badal said now all dreams of the party to expand to other States, including Gujarat, had been quashed. "AAP as a political entity will be finished in the next two years", he added. The SAD president also thanked the electorate of Rajouri Garden for sending out a clear cut signal that the people were not in favour of the confrontationist policies of AAP. "Such policies have resulted in a governance paralysis and development has come to a crushing halt". He said development could only occur with cooperation. "People have given a clear signal that they do not like Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal's confrontationist attitude with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. This is also a verdict in favour of the pro development policies of the Mr Modi and the NDA", he added.