Assembly elections are to be held in Delhi and Haryana. Haryana will hold elections later this year, while the national capital will go to polls early next year. In both these states, the Indian coalition is on track to pursue a policy of going it alone. Because the two major parties of the grand alliance, Congress and AAP, see themselves in a strong position in these states.
In the Lok Sabha elections, AAP and Congress contested together in both the states. Both parties tried their luck under the seat sharing formula of 4-3 in Delhi and 9-1 in Haryana. Both parties failed to win a single seat in Delhi. But the India Alliance got a chance to revel in the strength of the Congress in Haryana. Congress won 5 seats here.
Congress enthusiasm is high in Haryana
Haryana has 10 Lok Sabha seats. Congress won 5 of them. The enthusiasm of the Congress is high after this performance. This is the reason why the party leaders are hoping to win the assembly elections and that too on their own. The party has made it clear that it will not form an alliance with Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party. Senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said that we fought the Lok Sabha elections in Punjab single-handedly. We gave one seat to AAP in Haryana, but I don’t think there will be an alliance in assembly elections. He said that AAP itself has said that there will be no alliance even in Delhi assembly elections.
In the 2019 assembly elections, the Congress managed to win 31 out of 90 seats. Its vote share was 28.08 percent. At the same time, in 2014 it won only 15 seats and the vote share was less than 15 percent. At the same time, AAP did not manage to win a single seat. If seen, the performance of Congress in Haryana has improved after 2014 elections. The Congress feels that the popularity of the BJP government has declined in the state. Farmers’ anger and unemployment have played an important role in this.
Aam Aadmi Party is definitely looking strong in Delhi and Punjab but its strength is yet to be seen in Haryana. She contested and lost from one seat in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. In the 2019 assembly elections, she contested 46 seats and lost all of them.
Roads are different in Delhi too!
Like in Haryana, AAP and Congress will be seen walking different paths in Delhi too. The Congress and AAP have shared seats in Delhi for the Lok Sabha elections, with top leaders of both parties like Rahul Gandhi and Arvind Kejriwal calling for workers to cooperate. But this cooperation ended after the Lok Sabha elections. According to local Congress leaders, there is no scope for an alliance with AAP at the state level.
According to Delhi Congress leaders, the reasons for needing an alliance with AAP in the Lok Sabha elections were different compared to the Assembly elections. According to the party’s local unit, the priority in the general elections was to narrow the vote split in the contest with the BJP, while at the state level the main focus of the Congress would be to regain lost ground. Congress is struggling to make a comeback in Delhi after its defeat in 2014. Before this, she was in power for 15 consecutive years in the national capital.
Currently, it does not have a single MLA in the state assembly. One of the major reasons for the failure of the Congress in the Delhi elections is that it has lost its base to the Aam Aadmi Party. The party estimates that AAP has grown at the expense of Congress in Delhi.
