Granted that the Congress party is heading the INDIA bloc, it is incumbent on the party to neutralize its main rival BJP’s influence wherever possible. Rather, it fought opposition allies in Delhi, Haryana and Andhra Pradesh, unwittingly ensuring the BJP or its allies romped home to victory and causing extreme embarrassment to the INDIA alliance. The Congress now blames the AAP and Arvind Kejriwal for the failure to put up a joint fight. This is true as well. Had Kejriwal been accommodative with the Congress, the results would have been different and the AAP could have retained power. The Congress raised its poor tally from four-plus percent five years ago to six per cent in the Delhi polls this time. Analysts point out that the BJP secured nearly 30 of its 48 seats with a margin of less than two per cent of the polled votes. Had there been an alliance between the AAP and the Congress, the BJP would still have languished in the sidelines.
Looking back, the BJP had managed to retain Haryana and even improve its electoral performance there despite the Congress hopes of capturing power there in the last assembly polls. The failure of the Congress to forge an alliance with some regional parties there proved to be fatal while the BJP laughed its way to an unexpected victory. A similar situation was evident in Andhra Pradesh, where YSR Congress lost power simply because it adamantly decided to fight the polls on its own, rather than cobbling up an alliance with the BJP, with which it was on friendly terms. There is no Congress worth the name in Andhra Pradesh today. YSRC’s Jagan Mohan Reddy is rueing his decision to go it alone. Had he allied with the BJP, the two parties could have kept Chandrababu Naidu of the Telugu Desam away from power. Naidu is now digging in his heels and even sharing power in the Modi government in Delhi. He is extracting his pound of flesh from Modi in the form of generous developmental project funding, which would cement his party’s base in the state.
Kejriwal was, admittedly on the defensive after the series of scandals that plagued his administration, with some of his ministers ending up in jail one after another. The BJP and Modi made sure to put Kejriwal on his toes as it was important for the saffron edifice to grab power in the national capital. Kejriwal’s saga had topped with his own arrest and jailing in the Delhi Liquor Scam. This forced him to eventually quit his post. Having faced such odds he should have had the sense to keep the Congress on his side this time. The AAP government in Punjab might survive for now, as the BJP has only a few MLAs there. However, as it turns out, the INDIA bloc is now a laughing stock.
