Photo : PTINew Delhi: With Aam Aadmi Party’s clean sweep in Punjab assembly elections, the Congress party is down to its worst performance having been left in power in just two states on its own (Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan) and as a junior ally in Jharkhand and Maharashtra.AAP leader Raghav Chadha, who has been asserting that the Arvind Kejriwal-led outfit is the ‘natural and national replacement’ of the grand old party, has once again reiterated on Thursday that his party is the alternative to Congress.The Aam Aadmi Party, which was born out of a civil movement in the national capital, has successfully managed to capture power in a second state within just ten years of inception. With its performance in Punjab, the Kejriwal-led party is likely to replace Congress as the primary opponent of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in national politics.Often called the B-team of the BJP, it would be interesting to see how the AAP performs in the home state of Prime Minister Narendra Modi – Gujarat – later this year.Of the five states – Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Goa, Uttarakhand, and Manipur – that went to polls this time, the AAP contested in four. In Goa, where the AAP contested for the second time, they managed to grab two seats. However, the Kejriwal-led party failed to open its account in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. AAP’s Punjab sweepKejriwal-led AAP dethroned Congress in Punjab by winning 92 seats in the 117-member Assembly. With this, the Congress party has been reduced to a mere 18 seats, while the Shiromani Akali Dal managed to grab three seats, and its ally BSP won just one. The BJP has secured victory on two seats and one seat went to an independent candidate in the border state. Now, the AAP has the highest vote share of 42.01 per cent in Punjab, followed by Congress’s 22.98 per cent, SAD’s 18.8 per cent, and BJP’s 6.60 per cent.