AAP gets national party recognition, Sharad Pawar's NCP, TMC, CPI lose status

Meanwhile, in a big setback, Sharad Pawar's Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress have been downgraded to the status of a regional party.

The CPI too was assigned the regional party status.

For a political party to be recognised as a national party, it has to be a recognised state party in four or more states (or) 2% seats in Lok Sabha, as per rules.

When a party loses a national party status, the party will not get a common symbol for its candidates in states where it's not recognised.

Following Monday's restructuring, six parties-Congress, BJP, CPM, Bahujan Samaj Party, National People's Party (NPP) and the Aam Aadmi Party- now have national party status.

Reacting to the development, AAP leader Raghav Chadha said: "All of us at AAP are thrilled at this good news. I congratulate every single worker of AAP who worked tirelessly through the last decade to make AAP a success. Under the leadership of Arvind Kejriwal, AAP is India's fastest-growing political start-up."

"Despite all odds, despite every single trick in the book to eliminate AAP from the national political space, AAP is going strength-to-strength," he added.