The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is expected to play a major role in the forthcoming Haryana Assembly election. The AAP had contested the 2024 Lok Sabha elections in Haryana in alliance with the Congress party. The AAP contested the Kurukshetra Lok Sabha seat, while the Congress party contested the remaining nine seats. In addition to Haryana, in the National Capital Territory of Delhi, the AAP and the Congress party also contested in alliance. However, in Punjab, these two parties contested against each other ferociously. Just after the Lok Sabha election, the AAP declared that it was no longer an ally of the I.N.D.I Alliance.
The AAP is eyeing Haryana after its political victory in Punjab and NCT of Delhi. The AAP knew from its experiment that in various States, firstly, it would have to weaken the Congress party or the other regional outfit before coming to power. The AAP first weakened and then decimated the Congress party in Delhi, and then it targeted the Shrimoni Akali Dal (SAD) in Punjab. The AAP’s next target is Gujarat and Haryana. In Gujarat, the AAP had weakened the Congress party to the extent that it could not stand on its own in the coming days. The AAP will apply the same formula and tactic in Haryana in the ongoing Assembly election, too.
In Haryana, the AAP is all set to play spoilsport for the Congress party. The AAP is campaigning vigorously in Haryana and is set to put candidates in all 90 Assembly seats. The AAP has always been a political curse for the Congress party. In its initial political foray in the 2013 Delhi Assembly election, the AAP had weakened the Congress party. Since that election in 2013, it has become clear that the AAP will grow at the cost of the Congress party. In Delhi Assembly and Lok Sabha elections the AAP had completely eclipsed the Congress party. Due to the AAP the Congress party is not able to open its account in two previous Assembly and Lok Sabha elections.
In Gujarat, in the 2022 Assembly election, the AAP had contested 180 seats and completely divided into the vote bank of the Congress party. The BJP performed its best in 2022 in its electoral history in Gujarat by winning 157 seats. Due to the foray of the AAP, the BJP vote share also increased by 3.45 per cent in 2022. In 2022, the BJP in Gujarat got more than 50 per cent vote share for the first time. We cannot rule out the possibility of the Gujarat experiment in Haryana in the 2024 Assembly election.
From its political forays across multiple States, the AAP come to the conclusion that it’s easy for the AAP to target the Congress party vote bank while it will be as likely as impossible to divide the BJP vote bank. The BJP voters are diehard with their ideology and go with the party. Multiple leaders like Uma Bharti in Madhya Pradesh, the late Keshubhai Patel in Gujarat, Babulal Marandi in Jharkhand, and the late Kalyan Singh in Uttar Pradesh have formed their own political outfit, but later they had to merge their party with the BJP in order to remain in reckoning. Shanker Sinh Vaghela had merged his Rashtriya Janta Party (RJP) with the Congress party.
The AAP will venture into Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh in the coming days.
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