The Congress-Aam Aadmi Party alliance in Haryana has also gone south, the way it did in Punjab. On Monday, Aam Aadmi Party released its first list of 20 candidates, putting a firm stop to any possibility of a rethink. Since then, the party has so far released 4 more lists of candidates — declaring a total of 70 candidates so far. But what made the prospective tie-up — in which the Central leaders of both parties were interested — collapse? More importantly, will it lead to an early Christmas for the BJP in the coming assembly election?
The Congress has been tight-lipped about this alliance and its collapse because the initiative came from Mr Gandhi. AAP also has been choosing its words carefully.
Sources said like Punjab, it was the local leaders of the Congress who were skeptical about the alliance with the AAP. Arvind Kejriwal’s party traces its inception to enmity with the Congress during Anna Hazare’s anti-corruption movement.
Over the years, it has been growing at the cost of the Congress, slowly encroaching upon the political space of the Grand Old Party – reason why no state unit of the Congress, be it Delhi, Punjab or Haryana, is bitter about AAP.
This is also why the Congress state unit was stalling, with a one-step-forward- two-steps-back strategy.
The state Congress leaders were sanguine that the party would not have received any special benefit from an alliance with AAP. On the contrary, there were concerns that a tie-up would alienate Congress’s leaders in preferred seats that would have gone to AAP under a seat sharing deal.
Sources said though Rahul Gandhi spoke of showing a big heart, it became difficult to implement it given the ground realities.
AAP’s performance in Haryana in 2019 has been lacklustre. The party had fielded candidates on 46 seats, but got less than one per cent of the votes. The recent Lok Sabha election was no different. Under the alliance with the Congress, AAP had got the Kurukshetra Lok Sabha seat, but lost the contest by around 30,000 votes.
In the current scenario – where the Congress is the main Opposition in the state and hopes to make inroads after three consecutive terms of BJP rule – AAP, however, can still play spoiler for the Congress in at least seven seats.
These include assembly seats like Kalayat, Rania, Pehwa, Barwala, Jind, Bhiwani and Gurugram. Of these, Congress could not win even a single one last time but hopes to do better this year.
