Despite the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) national convener Arvind Kejriwal’s tough stance against the Congress, it’s hard to ignore the possibility that the AAP may again need the support of the grand old party if a situation similar to 2013 arises. And there is no dearth of independent analysts who are not ruling out another hung assembly in Delhi.
So, whatever be the political compulsion, the former Delhi chief minister will have to understand the ground reality and should not be carried away by the support of some regional satraps, Mamata Banerjee, Akhilesh Yadav, Uddhav Thackeray and even Omar Abdullah. They have hardly any say in Delhi, therefore, their statements will have no impact on the outcome of the result. A couple of them are even calling for the dissolution of Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) bloc keeping in mind their own political objective in their respective states.
The hard truth is that neither Kejriwal nor Banerjee had ever whole-heartedly joined INDIA as the AAP and the Trinamool Congress contested against the Congress in Punjab and West Bengal, respectively in last year’s Lok Sabha poll.
Actually, Kejriwal and Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann had abruptly left the first conclave of the Opposition parties held in Patna on June 23, 2023. Kejriwal had then questioned the intention of the Congress party.
Later, Banerjee had opposed the name of Nitish Kumar for the post of convenor of INDIA as reportedly proposed by the Congress. In fact, Banerjee skipped the January 13, 2024 meeting of the INDIA bloc.
Minority government
Anyway, it is an undeniable fact that Kejriwal had led a minority government for the first time between December 28, 2013 and February 14, 2014 following the decision of eight Congress MLAs to support from outside as his party could win only 28 out of 70 seats in the assembly polls. The BJP had emerged as the single largest party with 31 seats and its alliance partners Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) bagged one and Janata Dal (United) and Independent also one each.
Curiously, the AAP had to take support from that very Congress against which Kejriwal moved mountains. The entire India Against Corruption campaign and Anna Hazare’s fast in Delhi was launched against the same Congress which was in power both at the Centre and Delhi. Yet when AAP failed to get majority on its own it was not the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) with which Kejriwal formed the government, though it was generally believed that he enjoyed tacit backing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).
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Not only that, after resigning from the post of chief minister on February 14, 2014 he contested election against Narendra Modi from the Varanasi Lok Sabha seat and garnered a significantly larger number of votes than Congress candidate Ajay Rai.
Muslim factor
What Kejriwal needs to understand is that this time incumbency factor is certainly working against him in Delhi. At the same time, the AAP cannot be sure of the 12% Muslim votes in the upcoming elections. The Congress is likely to be the beneficiary. Earlier, not only in Delhi, even in Varanasi, the Muslims largely threw their weight behind him.
His apathetic response towards the Muslims during February 2020 Delhi riots and subsequent statement blaming Tablighi Jamaat for the spread of COVID pandemic have turned many Muslims away from him. The Congress party can hope to do well in the constituencies having substantial Muslim votes.
Though it is difficult to say about the 3.4% Sikh votes, it is a fact that the SAD-BJP alliance had collapsed in Punjab, where the community largely backed the Congress party in the last two Lok Sabha elections. It needs to be mentioned that during the movement against the enactment of Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), the Sikhs had lent active support to those who took part in the Shaheen Bagh protests.
Crisis in INDIA
As whipping the Congress and Gandhis has become a favourite pastime for non-Congress parties, the fact is that all the constituents of the INDIA bloc are no less responsible for the present uncertainty. The only difference is while the alliance partners are blaming the Congress party for doing nothing to keep it afloat, the latter is not accusing them.
What these parties of the bloc failed to appreciate is that it is none else but the performance of the moribund Congress in the last Lok Sabha polls which brought down the BJP’s tally from 303 to 240.
Barring the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) no other INDIA combine parties did so well as the Congress.
Yes, the Congress lost in Haryana assembly elections though all the political pundits, including those close to the BJP, predicted its victory. But the INDIA bloc performed poorly in Maharashtra not just because the Congress fared badly but also because Sharad Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party (NCP-SP) and Uddhav Thackeray’s faction of Shiv Sena put up a dismal show.
In Jharkhand, the INDIA bloc achieved a historic victory because all the three main constituents – the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), the Congress, and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) – performed exceedingly well.
After the loss in Maharashtra, the other INDIA constituents started blaming Rahul Gandhi for not addressing more rallies, yet the fact is that he gave more space to Sharad Pawar and Hemant Soren in Maharashtra and Jharkhand, respectively. This was a part of strategy, just as Prime Minister Modi campaigned not so extensively in these assembly elections. So, it is Pawar and Thackeray who too let down the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) in Maharashtra.
Rise in Rahul’s stock
It needs to be mentioned that the Congress had performed poorly in the assembly elections held in December 2023, just four months before the Lok Sabha polls. It lost power in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh and was virtually wiped out in Madhya Pradesh. So, it was not very surprising when the party lost Haryana and Maharashtra just after the general elections.
It is in the Lok Sabha poll in between where the Congress, along with SP and DMK did well.
The jump in the number of Congress seats from 52 to 99 in 2024 parliamentary elections was largely possible because of the rise in stock of Rahul Gandhi in comparison to Modi. At the state levels, the grand old party is still struggling to come up with any similar face.
RJD chief Lalu Prasad recently gave a new twist to politics within the INDIA bloc by suggesting the name of Banerjee for the post of convenor.
Many in the Congress were not pleased with his statement which political pundits are interpreting differently. His son and leader of opposition in the Bihar assembly, Tejashwi Prasad Yadav, had in the recent days toughened his party’s stand towards the Congress.
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If Thackeray is trying to twist the arm of Congress it is largely because he wants his party to contest the Bombay Municipal Corporation elections alone.
Similarly, if the RJD – the most trusted ally of Congress – is speaking in a different tone, it is largely because it is not in favour of leaving 70 assembly seats for Rahul Gandhi’s party.
It is generally believed that the Congress let down the grand alliance in Bihar last time when it could win only 19 out of 70 seats. In contrast, the RJD had emerged as the single largest party winning 75 seats.
However, there is little likelihood of the RJD really deserting the Congress. Not much should be read in the floating of Banerjee’s name as convener. This does not mean that she would be the prime ministerial candidate of the INDIA bloc in distant 2029. The post of convener of the multi-party alliance has a more decorative value than any real political significance. Needless to remind, the three conveners of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) were George Fernandes, Sharad Yadav and Chandrababu Naidu – all from non-BJP parties, neither of them, barring Naidu, amounted to much politically.
Soroor Ahmed is a Patna-based freelance journalist.
This piece was first published on The India Cable – a premium newsletter from The Wire & Galileo Ideas – and has been updated and republished here. To subscribe to The India Cable, click here.
