At 4:3, AAP-Cong seat pact to check division of votes in Delhi

The relative performance of these parties in 2019, when they fought separately, offers some indication on why the seats were divided up in this manner

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Congress, the two major political rivals in Delhi, joined hands on Saturday to take on the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) on all seven Lok Sabha seats in the Capital.

Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal in Govindpuri area of Kalkaji Assembly constituency on Saturday. (HT Photo)

The AAP, both parties announced at a joint conference, will field candidates in West Delhi, South Delhi, East Delhi and New Delhi Lok Sabha constituencies, while the Congress will contest in the North East Delhi, North West Delhi and Chandni Chowk seats.

The relative performance of these parties in 2019, when they fought separately, offers some indication on why the seats were divided up in this manner. For instance, Congress got 29.67% vote share in Chandni Chowk, its best performance, which was followed by 28.85% of the votes it received in North East Delhi seat. Both these constituencies are home to people of different castes, communities and other voting blocs, including lower middle-class voters residents of unauthorised colonies and JJ clusters and Muslim populations — these are considered to be among the traditional Congress voter base.

To be sure, the BJP won all seven seats in both the past Lok Sabha elections. In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the party received 56.6% of the votes in all, while the AAP got 18.11% and the Congress 22.51%.In each of the seats, the BJP won more than 50% of the vote share. That year, the BJP, Congress, and AAP were in a triangular contest in all seven seats after the Congress-AAP alliance talks failed despite Congress leader Rahul Gandhi proposing a 4 (AAP)- 3 (Congress) formula at the time.

In those elections, AAP beat Congress’s vote share only in two constituencies: North West Delhi and South Delhi.

The alliance for 2024 is foremost meant to check the division of votes between them of people who do not want to choose the BJP.

Delhi Congress president Arvinder Singh Lovely said that through the three Lok Sabha seats it sought in the alliance, the Congress will be able to touch all segments of voters in the city. “In Chandni Chowk, we will be able to touch the traders’ community, middle class and upper-middle class voters; in North East, we will have the voters of unauthorised colonies, the Purvanchal community and others; and in North West, we will be able to cover the voters of rural Delhi, Jat community, Scheduled Caste (SC) community as well as the voters of unauthorised colonies.

“These three seats together represent the whole of Delhi. In the last three months, we have held extensive interactions with the voters of the seven Delhi seats who are very upset with the BJP and want to get rid of it. They will vote for the INDIA alliance candidates and we will win all the seven seats,” said Lovely.

A Congress leader who did not want to be named said that Congress sought the North West seat for what it sees as favourable demography for it. “The North West Delhi seat is reserved for the SC. It has a large number of SC voters who will choose Congress. It also has a sizable population of Jat voters who live primarily in the assembly constituencies of Nangloi Jat, Narela and Mundka. It houses large clusters of unauthorised colonies. If the party can successfully combine these factors, the North West Delhi would not be hard to win,” said the leader.

In the East Delhi, West Delhi, and South Delhi seats, which are with the AAP, the electorate includes people whom the party has had a strong outreach to, including those from the lower-middle-class, Purvanchal region and rural Delhi voters. The New Delhi Lok Sabha constituency, which too AAP will fight, is chief minister Arvind Kejriwal’s home constituency in the assembly — a seat he has represented at the state-level since 2013.

In a statement, AAP said: “Basically all seven seats of Delhi suit AAP in terms of winnability. However, for Delhi, we have agreed to the choice given by Congress. In alliance, all seats are being contested by INDIA and we will work to win all seven seats for INDIA alliance.”

Sanjay Kumar, professor and co-director of Lokniti, a research programme at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, said the AAP-Congress alliance will create a positive atmosphere but that does not mean that it will be able to win the seven seats, unless there is a major negative swing against the BJP.

“If the poll arithmetic is seen, in 2019, the BJP received over 50% vote share. Even as AAP and Congress have come together, it does not mean that they will be able to win unless there is a major negative swing against the BJP. But the alliance creates a positive atmosphere in favour of the INDIA alliance. The Congress has reached an alliance with the Samajwadi Party and now with the AAP. It will create a positive public perception about the INDIA alliance and they would be considered as a strong opposition to the BJP even though that does not mean that they are going to defeat the BJP.”

Asked if votes will be transferred from one ally to another in constituencies where only one of them will be contesting, Kumar said 70-80% of votes are transferred when two parties ally but that depends on how much workers from both parties work on the ground.