Can AAP’s New Strategy Help it Become the Only Party to Defeat BJP Thrice?

AAP’s success in Delhi so far has had two elements – winning over a section of voters who vote for the BJP at the national level and consolidating the entire anti-BJP vote, a big part of which goes to the Congress at the national level.

Let’s look at the arithmetic. In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP secured 54 percent votes and the AAP-Congress alliance secured 43 percent (AAP 24 percent, Congress 19 percent). To win Delhi again, AAP needs to retain as much of the consolidated Opposition vote as possible and in addition to this, wean away roughly one in six voters who voted for the BJP.

Its imports from the BJP and Congress need to be seen in this light.

For instance, Seelampur and Seemapuri are two segments where the AAP-Congress alliance secured more votes than the BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Since both were in the Northeast Delhi Lok Sabha seat, which was in the Congress’ quota, for AAP it became essential to take over the Congress’ base in these segments. That’s why they have brought on board the Congress’ main faces from these two areas – Chaudhary Mateen Ahmed and Veer Singh Dhingan.

Similarly, by bringing in Jitender Shunty and Anil Jha from BJP, AAP is trying to do two things: take over a part of BJP’s base in these seats and deprive BJP of their main faces in these areas.

There is another element to this.

In every seat, there are voters who vote as per party preference or preference for the CM or PM candidate, as well as those who vote based on the popularity of the local candidates contesting.

In the past one decade, elections in Delhi had become increasingly de-localised – Lok Sabha polls have been a mandate in favour of PM Narendra Modi while Assembly elections have been a mandate in favour of CM Arvind Kejriwal. Popularity of individual candidates have tended to matter less.

However, this time AAP senses that in some seats, it may need the additional vote that candidates bring and hence the emphasis on entrants from other parties. Kejriwal not being CM at present also makes a personalised campaign a bit tougher.

Though it is a party that came out of a protest movement against the political class, AAP has fielded political turncoats even in the past.

Minister Imran Hussain and Tughlakabad MLA Sahi Ram were both BSP councillors earlier and are now established within AAP for about a decade. Then Old Delhi stalwarts Shoaib Iqbal and Parlad Singh Sawhney joined AAP ahead of 2020 elections and now their sons are also coming up in the party ranks.

However, these leaders joined the party at a time when it didn’t have many established faces. This time the acquisitions are different both in terms of scale as well as the fact that they are replacing existing AAP faces.

AAP is in for a tough battle as the BJP, even in defeat, has displayed a consistent ability to retain and even increase its vote share – it secured 32 percent votes in 2015, 38 percent in 2020 and 39 percent in the 2022 MCD election. In the MCD poll, it was just 3 percentage points behind AAP at 42 percent, with the Congress a distant third at 11 percent.

Keeping BJP below 40 percent and Congress below 5 percent is AAP’s main challenge.