As the Congress stares at a fourth consecutive electoral defeat in Delhi, the party is finding a silver lining in the possible downfall of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). While the BJP surges ahead, the Congress believes that the weakening of AAP is a necessary step for its own long-term revival in the national capital, which was once its stronghold.
Despite the INDIA bloc’s concerns that Congress should have allied with AAP to counter the BJP, Congress leaders maintain that AAP was unwilling to form an alliance, having independently announced its 70 candidates. Some opposition parties fear that a decisive BJP win in Delhi, following recent victories in Haryana and Maharashtra, could revive the narrative of the party’s electoral invincibility under Prime Minister Narendra Modi—an outcome that could spell trouble for the opposition in upcoming elections in Bihar and West Bengal.
Congress insiders argue that their aggressive campaign against AAP was justified, sensing growing public discontent against Kejriwal’s party. While Congress’s vote share has seen little improvement from its 4.26% in 2020, party strategists are keenly watching whether their candidates influenced AAP’s losses by splitting votes.
Historically, the BJP’s vote share in Delhi has remained between 32% and 38% since 1993, while Congress’s dominance eroded from 40.31% in 2008 to under 10% in 2015 and 4.26% in 2020. Meanwhile, AAP had surged to 54.34% in 2015 and 53.57% in 2020. With this in mind, Congress believes that reclaiming lost ground necessitates AAP’s decline, arguing that the volunteer-driven party may struggle to sustain itself without power.
However, Congress’s hopes for a double-digit vote share to bolster its standing within the INDIA bloc seem to be fading. This could weaken its position in upcoming Bihar elections, where allies may hesitate to accommodate its demands.
Still, for some in the Congress, AAP’s struggles offer a sense of poetic justice. The Anna Hazare movement, which Kejriwal helped lead, played a pivotal role in the anti-UPA wave that ultimately fueled the BJP’s 2014 landslide—marking the beginning of the Congress’s national decline. Now, as AAP faces political uncertainty, Congress sees an opportunity to rebuild from the ruins.
