Congress blanked out in Delhi again, but in AAP loss, sees some gains

The flip side of it, of course, is the resentment within the INDIA bloc, many of whose members feel the Congress should have joined hands or aligned with the AAP to take on the BJP.

To this, the Congress has been arguing that it was the AAP which did not want an alliance with it, and that Arvind Kejriwal himself spelt that out clearly with the AAP first off the block announcing all its 70 candidates.

However, many INDIA bloc parties believe a victory for the BJP in Delhi, coming on the heels of its smashing wins in Haryana and Maharashtra, will help it overcome the Lok Sabha setback and weave a political narrative once again that it is electorally invincible and that Narendra Modi is still as popular as he was – a message which the Opposition alliance cannot afford.

Especially since the Opposition has to take on the BJP in Bihar later this year and the all-important West Bengal next year.

The Congress, however, believes the party has to claw back in states to revive nationally. For Delhi, it feels, that means knocking out the AAP.

As per preliminary indications Saturday, the Congress hadn’t taken much off the AAP vote share, barely adding to the 4.26% it got last time. Now, the party will be seeing whether its candidates polled more votes than the margin of victory in seats where the AAP has lost to the BJP.

Still, Congress insiders say, their decision to go on the offensive against the AAP was correct as it had sensed “anger building up against the AAP”. Towards the end days of the Delhi campaign, all Congress top leaders including Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra attacked the AAP.

This calculation is also based on the logic that the BJP has a captive vote bank in the Capital, with its vote share remaining more or less between 32% and 38% in the Assembly elections since 1993, and that it largely does not overlap with the Congress’s.

The Congress was in power in Delhi from 1998 to 2013. In 2008, when the party won Delhi for the third consecutive time, its vote share was 40.31%, which plunged to 24.55% in 2013 and under 10% in 2015. In 2020, it managed to get just 4.26% vote share.

On the other hand, the AAP’s vote share in 2013 was 29.49%, went up to 54.34% in 2015 and was 53.57% in 2020.

The BJP’s was 33.07% in 2013, dipped a bit to 32.19% in 2015 but went up to 38.51% in 2020.

“This shows that the Congress support base has moved lock, stock and barrel to the AAP. So knocking out the AAP is key for our revival,” a Congress leader said before the results.

The Congress calculation also is that unlike the BJP and Congress, which have a cadre base, a largely volunteer-driven party like the AAP – which was the product of a movement – would wither away once out of power. “We know the Muslims did not vote for us, a large section of our old support base still voted for the AAP and that only a small section may have come back to us this time. But the AAP will struggle to sustain once out of power,” one leader said.

However, the Congress’s hope that a double digit vote share may revive its fortunes in the INDIA bloc seemed to be getting belied Saturday morning. “If it happens, the allies will have to accommodate us and give us a decent number of seats,” a leader had said before the results.

The immediate impact would be in Bihar, which goes to elections next. The Congress is already perceived as the weak link in the RJD-led Mahagathbandhan, and in the 2020 Assembly elections, was believed to have dragged down the alliance. If its prospects remain dismal in the Capital, allies won’t cut it any slack in Bihar.

Still, there will be some sweet revenge in an AAP defeat. It was the Anna Hazare movement, of which Kejriwal was a part, which was instrumental in creating the strong anti-UPA mood across the country that eventually led to the BJP victory in 2014. And the start of a Congress collapse that remains unchecked.