India, April 22 -- Just weeks after its defeat in the Delhi assembly elections, the Aam Aadmi Party's (AAP) decision to not contest the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) mayoral polls leaves the outfit its most diminished footprint in the Capital since its electoral debut.

From the political highs of 2022 - when it won a landslide in Punjab, fought spirited campaigns in Goa and Gujarat, and ended the year by sweeping the MCD polls - which followed thumping victories in Delhi assembly polls in 2013, 2015 and 2020, the AAP has, in just two and a half years, now finds itself purely in the opposition in all power centres in Delhi.

While party leaders on Monday acknowledged that the AAP lost its majority in MCD due to a string of defectio...