Delhi is the center of the country’s politics and race for power. To make this center its stronghold, every political party plays the full game of Sama, Daam, Dand and Bheed in the electoral war. But victory is achieved only by the one who can instill confidence in the heart of Delhi to work. The Election Commission has announced the election season of Delhi (Delhi Assembly Election 22025), with which the political parties taking part in it have started preparing their respective strategies. Every party is claiming and expressing confidence that this time on 08 February it will conquer the fort of Delhi. The political battle of Delhi is also special because this time three national parties are clashing with each other.
This is the first election in Delhi for Aam Aadmi Party after getting the status of national party. But in this electoral battle of Delhi, a strange kind of restlessness is visible in the camps of Aam Aadmi Party and Congress Party. The reason for this is also special, because in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, both these parties had jointly contested the Lok Sabha elections in Delhi. Out of the seven Lok Sabha seats of Delhi, Aam Aadmi Party won on four seats and Congress won on three seats directly from Bharatiya Janata Party. Had competed. But both Aam Aadmi Party and Congress suffered a crushing defeat on these seven seats. Now the situation is such that the two national parties which were making mistakes in the Lok Sabha elections, are now pitting against each other in the assembly elections within a few months.
Delhi becomes the battlefield of Indi alliance
During the Lok Sabha elections, the Delhi from which the pictures of unity of the Indi alliance were presented to the whole country, today the same Delhi has become the battlefield of the parties of the Indi alliance. In the Indi alliance, all the parties in the alliance have geared up against the country’s oldest party, Congress. Most of the parties of this alliance have announced their support to Aam Aadmi Party and have come into the fray against Congress. Samajwadi Party from Uttar Pradesh, Trinamool Congress from West Bengal, Rashtriya Janata Dal from Bihar, Shiv Sena (Uddhav) from Maharashtra, DMK from Tamil Nadu and National Conference from Jammu and Kashmir.
The picture emerging from the Delhi Assembly elections is refreshing the memory of that political period of the country, when the politics of non-Congressism was at its peak and the regional parties of every state were involved in the arithmetic of multiplication and division to defeat the Congress. Were. This time, the huge war going on between the parties of the Indian alliance in the Delhi elections is proof that these parties had formed the alliance only to strengthen their political position and as soon as the regional parties felt that the Congress was weakening their political position, All the regional parties have rallied against the Congress.
Confusion in Congress
In the undeclared war going on between Congress and regional parties, Congress’s position has become like that of a snake and a mole. On one hand, it is the compulsion of Congress to contest elections against regional parties in every state to strengthen its political position, while on the other hand, there is a need for political management to take cooperation and support of these regional parties to keep the leadership in national politics in their hands. Is. Before Delhi, the same situation was seen in the Haryana assembly elections, where Aam Aadmi Party and Congress contested against each other. Along with Haryana, in Maharashtra too, there was constant conflict and tension between Congress and Mahavikas Aghadi’s Shiv Sena (Uddhav) and NCP (Sharad). Even Samajwadi Party broke ties with Indi alliance in Maharashtra.
The same situation was seen in the 2023 assembly elections of Madhya Pradesh, when Congress did not compromise with Samajwadi Party on even one seat. Even in Bihar, Rashtriya Janata Dal considers Congress as its arch rival. It gave minimum 9 seats to Congress in the Lok Sabha, out of which it lost 6 seats. In West Bengal, Congress joined hands with Left parties to strengthen its position and challenged Trinamool Congress in the 2021 assembly elections, yet Trinamool Congress won. Whereas in Kerala, Congress attacked the Left parties to strengthen its political position. This time the Delhi Assembly elections have once again entangled Congress in the web of compulsion and necessity.
“Both were left in a dilemma, neither Maya nor Ram were found.”
The Congress party, which has been facing defeat in the Lok Sabha elections and almost all the important assembly elections continuously since 2014, took a major decision in the Belagavi session of Karnataka last year. It was decided that the year 2025 would be celebrated as ‘Organization Creation Campaign’. Under this, throughout the year, the Congress Party is running a campaign to strengthen the organization at every state, every district and block level. In such a situation, it becomes necessary that Congress fights every election with full zeal and enthusiasm. The first litmus test of this zeal and enthusiasm of Congress has come in the Delhi Assembly elections. The first evidence of this enthusiasm is that Congress has fielded all the strong candidates against Aam Aadmi Party in Delhi. The second proof is that Congress leaders in Delhi are openly giving statements against Kejriwal.
Congress leader Ajay Maken, while releasing the white paper on the work of the Delhi government in the last ten years, said about Kejriwal in the press conference – “He is anti-national, he has no ideology except his personal ambitions.” He further said, “I have never been in favor of this thing, neither was nor will I be, that a person like Kejriwal can be trusted. Kejriwal can go to any extent to fulfill his own ambitions in Indian politics, he has no ideology, no thinking.”
Arvind Kejriwal was shocked by this tremendous attack by Congress and he started working on the strategy of isolating Congress from the Indian alliance. The result was that all the parties of the Indi alliance stood in support of Kejriwal. Even the press conference which Congress was scheduled to hold on January 5 on the evidence proving Kejriwal to be anti-national, had to be postponed due to pressure from Tamil Nadu’s ally DMK. Now it remains to be seen when Congress brings before the public the evidence that proves Kejriwal to be anti-national.
How did Congress end in Delhi?
Arvind Kejriwal is the biggest reason for the great war going on between Aam Aadmi Party and Congress in Delhi today. Arvind Kejriwal captured power in Delhi in 2013 by launching a corruption movement against Congress in 2011. Kejriwal completely captured the votes of the Congress party in this election. In the 2008 assembly elections, Congress got 40.3 percent votes and BJP got 36.3 percent votes. Whereas in the 2013 elections, when Aam Aadmi Party contested the elections in Delhi, the vote percentage of Congress Party fell to 24.7 percent and the vote percentage of Aam Aadmi Party reached 29.7 percent. In this election, the votes received by BJP had decreased by only 3 percent as compared to 2008. In the 2015 assembly elections, the vote percentage of Congress decreased to 9.7 percent and the vote percentage of Aam Aadmi Party increased to 54.5 percent. But BJP’s vote percentage still remained at 32.3 percent.
If we talk about the last assembly elections i.e. 2020, the vote percentage of Congress decreased badly to 4.3 percent, while the vote percentage of Aam Aadmi Party remained at 53.8 percent. In this election, BJP increased its vote percentage to 38.7 percent. In this way, in the last three assembly elections, while BJP’s vote percentage increased from 33 to 38 percent, Congress’s vote decreased from 40 percent to 4 percent, of which Aam Aadmi Party took full advantage. In such a situation, the biggest question before the Congress is whether it should follow the dharma of alliance or save its existence in Delhi. The litmus test will be whether or not the Congress can maintain the attitude with which it was seen entering the election field against Arvind Kejriwal and his Aam Aadmi Party.
Harish Chandra Baranwal is a senior journalist and writer.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are the personal views of the author.
