The battle lines have been drawn and the stage is set for the BJP-led NDA of 38 parties to square off with the united ‘INDIA’ Opposition bloc comprising 26. Efforts to unite the Opposition have been underway for a while now and the ruling Aam Aadmi Party in Delhi is among the most notable entrants. The Arvind Kejriwal-led party, which was until recently on a warpath with the Congress, changed tack after the latter’s promise of support to crucial legislation that would take away the control of services in Delhi from its hands.
This is only the second time in its history that the AAP will be allying with the Congress — it had formed a government with outside support from the Congress after a fractured mandate in the Assembly elections in Delhi in 2013. That government lasted all of 49 days.
Ahead of the seat-sharing discussions within the Opposition bloc, a survey provides indicators to which way the wind was blowing. In the Lok Sabha elections in 2019, the BJP retained all seven parliamentary seats in the capital, bagging a staggering vote share of 56.9 per cent. The Congress came in a distant second with a vote share of 22.5 per cent while the AAP finished third with only 18.1 per cent of the voters polling in the ruling party’s favour.
The clean sweep by the saffron party became more pronounced on account of the vote percentage garnered by its winning candidates. Harshvardhan, the party’s Chandni Chowk candidate bagged 62.78 per cent votes while Manoj Tiwari won the North Delhi seat with 63.86 per cent votes in his favour.
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Gautam Gambhir (61.7 per cent), Pravesh Singh Verma (60.82 per cent), Meenakshi Lekhi (56.91 per cent), Hansraj Hans (58.97 per cent) and Ramesh Bidhuri (58.75 per cent) also registered impressive victories from their constituencies of East Delhi, West Delhi, New Delhi, Northwest Delhi and South Delhi, respectively.
This, despite the fact that the AAP had swept the Assembly elections held in 2015, bagging 67 of the 70 assembly seats. In the 2020 elections too, the AAP registered a stellar performance, winning 62 of the 70 seats and also swept the reunified MCD polls by a decent margin.
Yet, the findings of the Times Now Navbharat opinion polls for Delhi Lok Sabha elections point to a repeat of the 2019 BJP phenomenon. As per the survey, the BJP could bag 48 per cent vote share in Delhi while the Aam Aadmi Party may have to settle with 32 per cent votes. The Congress, on the other hand, is slated to dip further with just 15 per cent of the vote share if elections are held today.
The impressive jump in its vote share — from 18.1 per cent in 2019 to 32 per cent in 2024 — is unlikely to translate into seats for the AAP, the survey predicts. The BJP would have an upper hand even if the Congress and AAP, in an unlikely scenario, join hands and unitedly contest the elections in Delhi. That possibility, however, may be far-fetched given the open disagreement of the Congress’ Delhi unit in allying with the AAP at any level.