The Delhi election results have given a wake-up call to the opposition parties – with a clear message, “Divided you stand, United you fall.” The Congress party leading the India bloc fought the polls all alone without entering into a tie-up with the dominant AAP. Results showed that a unity of the AAP and Congress could have averted a BJP victory in the national capital territory (NCT) region. The AAP won 43 per cent of the votes polled while the Congress got six per cent – a fall by over 10 per cent for the AAP and an increase by 2 per cent for the Congress compared to the last assembly polls. The BJP winning the Delhi assembly polls is fine, but a question is, where does this leave the INDIA bloc?
Had good sense prevailed, the AAP would have gone an extra mile this time to ally with the Congress simply because the BJP had put the party and its leader Arvind Kejriwal increasingly on the defensive through the Delhi liquor scam and other cases. The BJP acted with a killer instinct and held out an impressive dole to women, on which was super-imposed a luring IT cut through the Union Budget. A divided opposition fell by the wayside while the BJP laughed its way to victory. A temporary reprieve for Kejriwal’s AAP in Punjab, where it holds power now, is that the BJP is not a strong force there to upset the Kejriwal-Bhagwat Singh Mann applecart. Yet, the saffron party would try and unseat the AAP government, should a chance arise there. Mann’s government is not popular there for a variety of reasons; and discontent among the people is palpable. A spark can ignite a major fire there. The Congress party in Punjab is stronger than the BJP but the INDIA bonhomie does not work there.
The Opposition alliance is bound to face fresh tests to its integrity as a new round of assembly polls are expected this year and next year. The Bihar polls are in November followed by elections in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Assam, Pondicherry and Kerala. The opposition is divided in Bihar; and the ruling TMC is keeping a distance from the Congress-led alliance and the left in West Bengal. In Tamil Nadu, the Congress and DMK are on a strong wicket. The Congress is hoping to wrest power from the CPIM in Kerala. The INDIA alliance as such matters more in the next round, involving states like Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh etc. These are also where the BJP draws its main sustenance from. The Congress and SP together could fare well in the last Lok Sabha polls in Uttar Pradesh. If the BSP of Mayawati too is drawn in there, the BJP might be defeated in the next assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh, which is the main battleground for the next parliamentary polls as well.
