For the Congress in the national capital, post the Lok Sabha polls, it has been a quick change of tack and it has swiftly resumed its adversarial stance against the ruling Aam Aadmi Party amidst clear indications emanating from the party that it will not tie up with the AAP in the coming assembly elections in Delhi.
The Congress and the AAP had a seat-sharing arrangement in Delhi for the Lok Sabha polls, with the top leaders of the two parties such as Rahul Gandhi and Arvind Kejriwal calling upon the workers of the two parties to collaborate. But the bonhomie has fast dissipated post the Lok Sabha elections. At the state level, according to local Congress leaders, there is no scope for an alliance with the AAP.
According to Delhi Congress leaders, the factors that made an alliance with the AAP a necessity in the Lok Sabha polls were different as compared to the scenario in the assembly polls. In the general elections, the priority was to minimise division of votes in contests with the Bharatiya Janata Party, while at the state level, the main focus of the Congress will be on regaining lost ground, as per the party's local unit. Delhi is scheduled to have assembly elections in early 2025.
The Congress has struggled to make a comeback electorally in Delhi since its defeat in the state elections in 2014. Prior to that, it had been in power in the national capital for 15 years in a row. At present, it does not have a single MLA in the state assembly. A major reason for the Congress failing to make a mark in the elections in Delhi is that it has lost its support base to the AAP. The party's assessment is that the AAP has grown in Delhi at the Congress' cost.
“The state's political scene is in turmoil, with the many allegations of corruption made against the Kejriwal government. It was the Congress that had first taken up the issue of corruption in the excise policy. Corruption and misgovernance are the two main issues with which we will hit the ground,” said a Delhi Congress leader.
The party might find it challenging though to balance its stance with regard to Kejriwal's continued incarceration in the excise policy case at the national level with its opposition to the AAP government at the state level. Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi, in his inaugural speech in the Lok Sabha, talked about how it bothered him when opposition leaders are targeted, and he mentioned that Kejriwal continues to be in jail.
Meanwhile, in neighbouring Haryana too, where the Congress had contested on nine out of the ten seats, leaving Kurukshetra constituency for the AAP, there appears to be little chance of the two parties entering any understanding for the assembly elections. Haryana goes to polls later this year.
The Congress, which had failed to win a single seat in the previous Lok Sabha polls, won five seats this time round. The party feels that in the assembly elections, the fight will be primarily between the ruling BJP and the Congress.
The AAP, the Congress feels, will add little to the Congress' prospects since it is not a significant player in the state's politics. It is felt that the popularity of the BJP government has reduced drastically, with issues such as farmers' ire and unemployment playing an important role in this. The Congress's state unit feels it can capitalise on these issues in the Assembly elections to a much greater extent than it did in the Lok Sabha polls.
