New Delhi: With less than three months to go, the countdown for Lok Sabha elections has begun in the earnest. Discussions are on and strategies are being laid out across the political spectrum. But as the political parties gear up for the grand event, speculation has also started doing the rounds over who would side with whom.
One such case is of Delhi, which sends seven MPs to Parliament, where rumours of an alliance between the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) have made the equation more interesting.
Riding on the Modi wave in 2014, the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance had registered a thumping win, bagging all available Lok Sabha seats in Delhi along with Gujarat, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh.
However, the arithmetic of the votes polled by the three players in Delhi in 2014 suggests the BJP could face some reverses in the national capital if the AAP and Congress do join hands.
But electoral politics is as much about numbers as it is about chemistry.
In the recent elections in Telangana, assessments based on votes polled by Praja Kutami (grand alliance) constituents indicated a close fight between K Chandrashekar Rao and others. In the end, it turned out to be a one-horse race with KCR comprehensively pulverising his opponents.
For a more representative assessment, News18.com took into account vote share of the three key players in Delhi in three different elections in the state over the last five years to see how a possible AAP-Congress tie up may affect electoral fortunes.
BJP's Sweep in 2014 Lok Sabha Polls
The BJP in 2014 General Elections polled 44.6 percent votes in Chandni Chowk constituency and had won the seat with a margin of 13.88 percent over AAP candidate Ashutosh. But the combined vote-share of AAP and Congress in the same election is more than the BJP and stands at 48.67 percent.
Similarly, the AAP and the Congress have a combined vote-share of 50.62 percent in North-East Delhi against the BJP’s 45.25 percent, 48.9 percent against 47.83 of the BJP in East Delhi, 48.83 percent against 46.75 of the the BJP in New Delhi, 50.18 percent against 46.45 percent of the BJP in North-West Delhi and 47.03 percent against 45.17 percent of the BJP in South Delhi, respectively.
It is only in West Delhi constituency that the BJP received more votes than those of the AAP and Congress put together. Led by Pravesh Sahib Singh Verma, the BJP in West Delhi has a vote share of 48.32, which is more than the 42.74 percent vote-share of the AAP and Congress put together.
Change in Vote-Share After MCD Elections
In the 2017 municipal elections too, the AAP and the grand old party collectively garnered 47.32 percent of the total votes compared with 36.08 percent vote share of the BJP. However, Congress’ vote share rose to 21.28 percent this time around, while the AAP bagged around 26 percent — less than half of what the party got in 2015 Assembly polls.
This decrease in the AAP’s vote-share during the 2017 MCD elections is, perhaps, a reason why the party would to like to forge an alliance with the Congress. And much of it is because many surveys have pointed towards the decrease in AAP and Congress’s vote shares in comparison to that of the BJP that has remained static.
Caste Based Voter Preference Will Play an Important Role
A study by the National Election Study (NES) 2014, that showed the voting pattern of different socio-economic categories in Delhi, established this realignment of caste groups. According to the study, the upper caste voters who had largely voted for the Congress in 2009 did not favour the party in 2014, resulting in a dip of 38 percentage points of Congress’s vote share among them. On the other hand, the BJP consolidated its position among the Upper Castes by securing a staggering 62 percent of their votes — an increase of 15 percentage points from the 2009 Lok Sabha elections and a 22 percentage point increase as compared to the 2013 assembly elections.
The Congress also suffered a massive loss of the OBC voters as only 11 percent cast their vote for the grand old party, whereas the BJP secured 48 percent of the OBC voters.
This caste-based voter preference can further force the Congress and the AAP to join hands together to tackle the BJP in the capital.
However, there’s no denying that the equations keep changing. While the BJP swept the Lok Sabha seats, the AAP registered a historic win in Assembly polls in Delhi in 2015. The BJP again made a comeback in MCD elections in 2017. But an alliance between the Congress and AAP in the capital ahead of the Lok Sabha polls has the potential to pose a challenge for the BJP, which is trying to rebuild itself after a defeat in the Hindi heartland states.
What The Leaders Say
While an alliance between the Congress and the AAP appears to have an upper hand against the BJP on paper, there are still doubts and divergent opinions within the two parties over joining hands.
Mahabal Mishra, a former Congress MP from West Delhi, argued that a potential alliance with the AAP would be disastrous for the party in the capital in the long run.
"The issue is that of the big picture. If we were to ally with the AAP in Delhi ahead of 2019, it would spell disaster for the party. The impact on the party cadre would be very negative and because of some short-term gain, we would decimate the party's presence in Delhi,” said Mishra.
Another Congress leader, a member of the state unit, who didn't wish to be named, differed. "The issue is complicated. There is a definite advantage ahead of the Lok Sabha elections. If the Congress and AAP votes were to combine, we would effectively be able to keep the BJP out everywhere in the capital. That is seven seats."
Similar considerations are being thought of within the AAP. A senior party leader and member of the PAC, its top political decision-making body, explained, "Right now, neither the BJP nor the Congress have really started campaigning. On the other hand, we have been campaigning since before the winters. But it is not simple. For instance, what seats do we give? Our candidates have been campaigning for a long time now on all seats. So which seats do we give up?"
"Even if the seat sharing can be figured out, the party will have to take a decision on whether or not AAP is giving up entirely on Punjab because that is what an alliance with Congress would mean," the leader added.
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