It may have had the desired impact nationally, but, in Delhi, the alliance between the Aam Aadmi Party and Congress fell way short of converting the higher, combined vote share of both into seats.
Issues ranging from the transfer of votes from one to the other, lack of coordination between their workers and the failure to inform the voter that the two bitter rivals were actually fighting the BJP together have been flagged as reasons for the BJP running away with the mandate in Delhi yet again.
What it did, however, was dent the BJP’s vote share. As per the Election Commission data, the party garnered a vote share of around 54%, down from 56% it got in 2019.
While senior party leader Sanjay Singh said the mandate was the people’s response to BJP’s and Modi’s brand of politics, a senior leader said that in Delhi, the alliance ensured that the minority votes did not split. “The biggest advantage of the alliance was that the minority vote was consolidated. In the assembly polls, when AAP and Congress contested separately, it had a role to play in the eight seats that we lost (in 2020),” a senior party leader said.
A party insider, however, blamed the loss in Delhi on a “poorly fought election”.
“It has been clear for some time that AAP did not deploy the correct combination of people on the ground in areas where Congress was contesting. MLAs and councillors were asked to campaign outside their constituencies. In some cases, infighting and insecurities led to the campaign going awry,” the leader said.
Another AAP leader said, “The alliance had a big impact across the country... It had an impact beyond Delhi.”
AAP’s vote share increased by over 6 percentage points to cross 24%. Congress seemed to be the biggest loser — facing big loses in Northeast Delhi and Northwest Delhi — with its vote share decreasing from 22% in 2019 to 19% now.
Congress sources conceded that there were “several” issues with the alliance. “The alliance did not really materialise on the surface. Our workers did not coordinate, top leaders maintained a distance from each other, and a combination of these things confused our voters,” a senior Congress leader said.
“At the same time, we observed that the Congress vote got transferred to AAP in many areas but not the other way around. In some places, voters ended up voting for the BJP. It is for this reason that both parties are unlikely to come together for an alliance in the state,” the leader added