After facing a rout in urban local body polls thatindicated urban voters have lost faith in the faction-ridden party in Punjab,the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Wednesday played it down, saying it was the firsttime it had contested civic polls in the state.
Leader of Opposition and AAP leader Harpal Singh Cheemasaid the results were a good sign as the party's base and vote share in urbanareas had increased.
"This is a good sign for the party that the AAP willbe even stronger in the urban areas by 2022," he said in a statement.
He said the winning councillors would serve the people oftheir wards as 'sewadars'.
He claimed the results showed that AAP would win theforthcoming Punjab Assembly election by a landslide. He said the party musthave some shortcomings in this election and these shortcomings would berectified after self-assessment.
The AAP leader said in future the youth would also bemobilised by strengthening the party units in the urban areas.
Punjab's ruling Congress won six of the seven municipalcorporations with an absolute majority and emerged as the largest party in theseventh one.
Elsewhere, the Congress won 1,199 of the 1,815 wards inmunicipal councils in the state.