Why AAP is watching the Congress, not BJP, more closely this election

Sources told The Indian Express that it is expecting a tough fight from the Congress in Okhla, Chandni Chowk and Badli, among others.

While former Congress MLA Asif Ahmed Khan’s daughter Ariba Khan is contesting from Okhla against AAP’s Amanatullah Khan, senior Congress leader J P Aggarwal’s son Mudit Aggarwal is going up against AAP’s Punardeep Singh Sawhney, who is the son of sitting MLA Parlad Singh Sawhney from Chandni Chowk. From Badli, Delhi Congress chief Devender Yadav will go up against AAP’s Ajesh Yadav.

Amanatullah Khan and Ajesh Yadav are incumbent MLAs.

“For us, the worry is not that the Congress will win the seat but that it will end up helping BJP solidify its position. For the BJP, which has been out of power in the Delhi Assembly for 27 years now, this is a very crucial election. An increase in Congress’s vote share will only help them,” said a senior party leader.

Vote share data from the past decade shows that AAP has risen on the back of a massive Congress decline.

“Look at what happened in the 2017 MCD polls. The AAP had won the Assembly polls only two years ago with a massive vote share of 54% and Congress was reduced to 10%. But Congress fought the MCD elections well. The AAP vote share dropped to 26%, as the Congress’s rose to 21%. The BJP went up by just 4 percentage points but swept those polls,” said an AAP insider.

The AAP, fighting its toughest election yet, believes that it will be in a comfortable position if it wins more than 50 seats out of 70. Anything below that will leave the top leadership uncomfortable.

Several setbacks, including the arrest of its leaders in the excise policy case and the departure of four MLAS, including former minister Kailash Gahlot, have jolted the party in the past year.

“The AAP in Delhi has been able to do the work that it did only because of the brute majority it saw in 2015 (67 out of 70 seats) and 2020 (62 out of 70 seats). The best case scenario is getting over 60 seats but it will be satisfied with 50 seats,” said another leader.