With the failure of the proposed alliance between the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Congress party in Haryana, the AAP will play a big and decisive role in the Haryana Assembly election. The AAP will also give a decisive blow to the Congress party like some other States in Haryana. The Congress party sensed the spoiling effect of the AAP in the electoral arena, and it tried its best to ally with the AAP in Haryana.
Still, due to factionalism in the Congress party, the alliance between the AAP and the Congress party needed to fructify. In the Lok Sabha poll 2024, the Congress party allied with AAP in Haryana and gave one seat to Kurukshetra. Rahul Gandhi desired to have an alliance with the AAP but Bhupinder Singh Hooda faction in Haryana Congress Party did not allow the alliance to take shape. Due to such a failure of alliance with the Congress party, th,e AAP will contest with its full steam and try to win seats besides inflicting major damage to the prospects of the Congress party. The AAP will try to create such a condition for the Congress party in Haryana that in coming polls, the Congress party will have to ally with the AAP.
The Haryana episode shows that the Congress party did not learn lessons from its debacles. Due to AAP’s advent in Gujarat in the 2022 Assembly election, the Congress party met its worst debacle. The plight of the Congress party in Gujarat is so palpable that it became extremely tough for the party to elect even a single Rajya Sabha MP from the State. The Congress party was relegated to only 17 seats and did not qualify for the position of Leader of Opposition in the Gujarat Assembly. The Congress party lost its deposit on 41 Assembly seats in Gujarat in the 2022 Assembly election. This was the worst performance of the Congress party in terms of losing deposits of seats in Gujarat.
The plight of the Gujarat Congress party is attributed only to the advent of the AAP in Gujarat Assembly election in 2022. The AAP contested 181 seats in the 2022 Gujarat Assembly election and was the primary contestant on 40 seats either as winner or the runner. Ironically, on all these 40 seats, the AAP had to contest against the BJP. Of the 40 seats, the BJP won 35, while the AAP won the remaining five seats the AAP won. The Gujarat Assembly poll 2022 demonstrated that the AAP cut into the vote bank of the Congress party.
The National Capital Territory of Delhi is the next example for the Congress party to toe the line of AAP. The Congress party won three successive Assembly elections in NCT of Delhi with a clear majority under the leadership of Sheila Dikshit in the 1998, 2003, and 2008 Assembly elections. However, in the 2013 Assembly election, the AAP first weakened the Congress party. In the 2015 Assembly election, the AAP virtually eclipsed the Congress party, and the Congress party drew a blank. In the 2015 Assembly poll, the Congress party contested all 70 seats and forfeited the deposit on 62 accounts. In the 2020 Assembly election, the Congress party contested 66 accounts and forfeited its deposit on 63 accounts. NCT of Delhi was considered a political stronghold of the Congress party. In the 2004 Lok Sabha poll, the Congress party won 6 out of 7 LS seats, while in 2009, the party won all 7 seats.
The AAP always stood as a nemesis for the Congress party. In Punjab, the AAP had ousted the Congress party in 2022 and got 92 of the 117 accounts. In the 2022 Assembly election in Punjab, the Congress party forfeited its deposit on 31 accounts. This was the highest number of seats of forfeiting deposits for the Congress party since the first 1951 Assembly election.
