Last month, the Congress party decided to support the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government in opposing the Delhi Ordinance Bill in Parliament, which prevented AAP from drifting away from the opposition camp, which is seeking to bolster its numbers to counter the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. And now both parties are gearing up for an alliance in 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
The situation remains the same in Delhi, where the BJP won all seven Lok Sabha seats in 2019 with about a 57 per cent vote share, whereas Congress secured 23 per cent and the AAP got merely an 18 per cent vote share. If we add the vote share of both the Congress and the AAP, the BJP is way ahead of them.
As far as the Congress is concerned, even after scoring nil in the 2015 and 2020 assembly polls, got more votes from Delhi voters in the 2019 Lok Sabha election than the AAP. In five of the seven Lok Sabha seats, the Congress came in second place. The third party was AAP. Only in South and North-West Delhi did people choose the Arvind Kejriwal-led party as their second choice.
In South Delhi, the BJP’s Ramesh Bidhuri won by 56.57 per cent of the votes polled in the constituency. Raghav Chadha of the AAP secured 26.34 per cent, and Congress got only 13.55 per cent.
North-West Delhi constituency sent Hans Raj Hans of the BJP with a whopping 60.49 per cent of votes. In this constituency, AAP stood second with 21 per cent and Congress came in a distant third by getting just 16.88 per cent of votes.
Given its two consecutive victories in the 2015 and 2020 assembly elections with 55 and 54 per cent vote shares, respectively, AAP may hope to achieve a swing in its favour in Delhi after forming an alliance with the Congress. But the outcomes of the Lok Sabha elections in 2014 and 2019 are also strong indicators that while Delhi people want the AAP to lead the assembly, they do not think the party is qualified for a position in the Centre.
Source : India Today
