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Lok Sabha elections 2019: Delhi all set for triangular fight but who holds X factor?
The AAP and the Congress had prolonged, but unsuccessful, negotiations in an attempt to arrive at an alliance against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Delhi is all set to witness a triangular contest in the 2019 general elections. The political fight between the Aam Admi Party (AAP) and the Congress is not particularly ideological. The AAP and the Congress had prolonged, but unsuccessful, negotiations in an attempt to arrive at an alliance against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The fact that such an attempt was made shows that both the AAP and Congress expect the BJP to gain from a division of opposition votes.
The BJP won all seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi in the 2014 elections. In 2009, it was the Congress which won all seats in the national capital. However, victory margins in six out of seven parliamentary constituencies (PCs) came down between 2009 and 2014. The median victory margin in Delhi came down from 24.6% of total votes polled in 2009 to 13.9% in 2014. Because delimitation changed parliamentary constituencies boundaries in 2008, previous victory margins cannot be compared at the constituency level.
The Congress had a vote share of 15% in 2014, which is just above the median victory margin. This means that the Congress essentially played a spoiler for the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) which could not win a seat despite getting 33% of the popular vote. Whether or not 2019 will be a repeat of the 2014 story, meaning the BJP wins most or even all seats despite a significantly less vote share than the AAP and the Congress combined is the biggest question around the Delhi elections. This will only be known on May 23 when the results are out.
However, two other points are worth highlighting regarding the political contest in Delhi.
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The BJP got its highest ever all-India vote share (31%) in the 2014 elections. However, its 2014 vote share in Delhi (46.4%) was less than what it received in the 1996, 1998 and 1999 Lok Sabha elections.
In other states where the BJP won at least 90% of the seats — Gujarat, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh — in 2014, its vote share was above the 50% mark. The BJP has not been able to replicate its 2014 performance in terms of vote share in the 2015 assembly elections and 2017 Municipal Corporation of Delhi elections. To be sure, the BJP did make a recovery between the 2015 and 2017 elections.
It is likely that, unlike in 2014, the BJP could face some amount of anti-incumbency in Delhi. This could lead to a reduction in its 2014 vote share. Between 1999 and 2004, the BJP’s vote share had come down by 10 percentage points in Delhi. If something similar were to happen, the contest could really open up in some of the constituencies.
However, if the BJP’s vote share reduction were to accompany a revival in Congress support at the cost of the AAP, even a reduced vote share might not have an adverse effect on the BJP’s seat prospects. To be sure, the BJP has been claiming that there is pro-incumbency rather than anti-incumbency in these elections. This could increase the BJP’s vote share and increase the likelihood of the party winning all seven seats once again.
The AAP, which swept the 2015 assembly elections, is fighting the 2019 battle from an entirely state-focused perspective. It has made full statehood its biggest poll plank and is attacking the Narendra Modi government for reneging on this promise. Politically speaking, this is a big risk. It could make the party entirely irrelevant in the macro picture of the 2019 contest. However, if this clicks, and the party is able to even make a small dent in the 2014 vote shares of the Congress and the BJP, Delhi could throw a surprise in favour of the AAP.
The Congress, even in its negotiations with the AAP, had made an open offer of contesting three seats while giving four to AAP. This suggests that the Congress accepts itself to be the third force in the national capital. The question is whether the electorate also shares the same assessment about the party. This could be the biggest X-factor in the 2019 elections in the national capital.
