It’s been a week of good news for supporters of the I.N.D.I.A bloc after a series of setbacks in West Bengal, Punjab and Bihar. Last week, after sealing the deal with the Samajwadi Party (SP) in Uttar Pradesh , the Congress finalised a seat-sharing pact with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in five states / Union Territories covering 46 seats. The Congress, whose governments were dislodged in Delhi and Punjab by the AAP, has accommodated Arvind Kejriwal’s party to put up a united front against the BJP juggernaut in the 2024 Lok Sabha election.
The Congress has displayed a bigger heart, which many analysts over the last few months have accused it of lacking. In Haryana , it has conceded one seat to the AAP, where it has a limited presence, and in Gujarat, it has given away two seats. The deal has faced some opposition from the Congress’s local leadership in states.
It has accepted a smaller number of seats in Delhi – three – despite having received a higher vote share in the 2019 general election. The AAP had made a scintillating debut in Gujarat in the 2022 assembly polls, bagging a 13% vote share and helping the BJP secure a record victory of 150-plus seats. The party has been reduced to almost zero seats in Delhi since the AAP’s rise, and has lost around 35% votes since 2008. The AAP’s share of over 50% has largely come from the Congress’s 70% and other parties’ 30% votes.
The Congress tried a similar experiment in West Bengal with the Communist Party of India (Marxist). The elections of Kerala and Bengal are conducted around the same time, along with three other states. The point is, the Congress and the CPI(M) have a long history of rivalry, and hence, when they come, together it doesn’t cut much ice with voters.
Main opponents in Kerala, the two had joined hands in West Bengal both in 2016 and 2021. In both 2016 and 2021, the alliance failed to defeat Mamata Banerjee. In fact, in 2021 it couldn’t win even a single seat, and in 2016, its tally was lower than in 2011. The alliance was repeated in Tripura in 2023, and it again failed to unseat the BJP.
In effect, the Congress seems to have made peace with a party that has grown at its own expense in Delhi, Punjab and Gujarat. The AAP’s presence has helped the BJP in Gujarat, as well as in Goa to some extent. it has snatched power from the Congress While in Delhi and Punjab.
In Punjab, the Congress’s vote share has dropped from 40% in 2012 to 23% in 2022. The Akali Dal’s share dropped from 35% to 19% during the same period. The AAP, in turn, having made a dent in both these parties’ voting segments, currently commands a 42% vote share, with which it swept the state in 2022 winning 92 of the total 117 seats. The Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) vote share, meanwhile, has stayed unaffected at around 7% during this period. Ultimately though, no deal has been finalised for Punjab, with both the Congress and the AAP contesting independently for its 13 seats.
