Yes, no, may be: The AAP-Congress conundrum in Delhi

The elections to seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi are taking place on May 12, almost certainly. What is still uncertain is who is fighting against whom. After months of flip-flops over an alliance against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Congress and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) are yet to reach an understanding. The question now is, is it going to be an AAP-Congress alliance versus BJP or just AAP versus BJP? The third scenario of a Congress versus BJP/AAP can be safely ruled out, considering the Congress’s position in Delhi — the party has finished third in all Assembly, Lok Sabha and municipal elections since the AAP entered the political scene in 2013.

The deadlock

The everyday drama over an AAP-Congress alliance in Delhi took a sharp turn two days back when Congress president Rahul Gandhi tweeted that an alliance between the two parties in Delhi “would mean the rout of the BJP. “The Congress is willing to give up four seats in Delhi to the AAP to ensure this [BJP defeat]. But, Mr Kejriwal has done yet another U turn! Our doors are still open, but the clock is running out,” Rahul Gandhi said in the tweet.

In its defence, the AAP said it wants an alliance not just in Delhi but Haryana and Chandigarh as well.

AAP convenor and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal claimed that the talks were still on but accused Rahul Gandhi of helping the BJP by “dividing anti-Modi votes in Uttar Pradesh and in some other states”.

Senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel has said that it is up to the AAP to decide whether it wants to forge an alliance with the Congress in Delhi.

AAP Delhi unit convener Gopal Rai tweeted on April 15, saying that the Congress wants to defeat the BJP but only in Delhi. It wants BJP to win all 11 seats in Haryana and Chandigarh by not allying with the AAP.

Meanwhile, according to news agency Press Trust of India, a fresh round of talks will be held between the AAP and the Congress on April 17 in which the AAP is likely to propose an alliance with the Congress in Delhi, Haryana and Chandigarh with a seat sharing ratio of 5:2 in the national capital, PTI quoted unnamed sources.

The proposal for an alliance in multiple states is something that the Congress has already turned down. Last week, Congress’s PC Chacko held a press conference and said the party would go it alone in Delhi as the AAP had taken an “impractical stand” [alliance in multiple states]. He argued that the AAP didn’t have a base in Haryana and said the Congress was open to an alliance with AAP, provided it’s restricted to Delhi.

How it started

The talks of a possibility of the two parties coming together started last year in November when AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal and Congress president Rahul Gandhi shared stage at a Kisan Mukti Morcha rally. But four months later, what has ensued is a series of flip-flops and both sides accusing each other of “helping the BJP”.

Earlier, the AAP had said it will contest the 2019 Lok Sabha elections independently on all seats in Delhi, Punjab, Haryana and Goa to expand its base beyond state assemblies. But it was the Congress’s victory in the three states of Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh state elections that has somewhat changed the attitude of opposition parties towards it.

In March, three-time Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, who made a comeback to active politics in January this year and became the state Congress chief, wrote to Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi saying that an alliance with the the AAP for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls in Delhi will harm the party in the long run [state elections slated for early 2020]. In 2015 Assembly elections, the AAP had won 67 out of 70 seats leaving BJP with only three and completely decimating the ruling Congress which drew a blank.

What the numbers say

Going by the last Lok Sabha elections results, an AAP-Congress alliance in Delhi definitely looks more likely to perform well even though the BJP won all seven seats in 2014. That is because the combined vote share of the AAP (33%) and the Congress (15%) was slightly more than that of the BJP (47%) in the seven Lok Sabha seats.

In the 2015 Assembly elections, BJP, which won three seats, got a 32% vote share, while the Congress that won zero seats got 10% vote share and AAP, which won 67 seats, had a vote share of 54%.

Poll observers too suggest that a tie-up would work in favour of both the parties. According to a Delhi-specific survey by C-Voter in March, even most Congress voters, 58.7% want an alliance with the AAP. However, an equal number of AAP voters are opposed to it, according to the same survey. That could be a worrying factor for the APP is that 49.4% of those who voted for it in 2015 said that they may shift to the BJP if the party allies with the Congress.

Congress wants to restrict AAP to Delhi

Political pundits now believe that while the AAP is seeking a pan-India advantage with an alliance with the Congress, the latter wants to restrict the AAP to Delhi. Also, the Congress is not ready to forget the snub it got in the Delhi Assembly elections. “The AAP’s growth has come at the cost of the Congress. Many within the Delhi Congress strongly feel that a tie-up with the same party in Lok Sabha for two-three seats would mean already giving up the Assembly election contest,” said a Congress party source.

How good are AAP’s chances in Delhi?

In this entire conversation about AAP-Congress alliance, one factor that seems to have skipped the discourse is – how good are AAP’s chances of fighting the elections in Delhi on its own?

“The fact that the AAP is so insistent on forging an alliance with the Congress in Delhi in a way shows that it is not confident about its prospects, if it contests alone. From the heady days of 2014-2015, the AAP has been consistently losing its national appeal. While Congress strategists are averse to sharing the burden of anti-incumbency against Kejriwal’s Delhi government, Kejriwal is trying to create counter to the anti-incumbency by raising the demand for statehood for Delhi,” said Delhi-based political commentator Sidharth Mishra.

Also, a multi-state alliance would mean the Congress sacrificing its own Lok Sabha seats in Haryana to ensure the survival of the AAP. And Congress is clearly not ready to do that, he added.