Delhi Elections: How Congress Can Use AAP’s Defeat to its Advantage
On the face of it, the Delhi verdict opens a window of opportunity for the Congress. Theoretically, the AAP’s defeat is a chance for the grand old party to reclaim its bastions in Delhi and Punjab — and recoup its losses in other states where Kejriwal had managed to make inroads.
Although the INDIA bloc has been fraying – largely due to internal conflicts – despite its impressive showing in last year’s Lok Sabha polls, its raison d’etre remains as strong as ever, if not stronger.
Opposition parties had buried their differences to join hands with the sole aim of stopping the BJP juggernaut before it destroyed them. They were partially successful, but the BJP’s staggering victories in three consecutive Assembly polls have reinvigorated the party and restored the aura of its formidable election machine.
Except for Jharkhand and Jammu & Kashmir, the BJP crushed the Congress in Haryana, and other INDIA bloc partners in Maharashtra and Delhi. Three successive wins have set a resurgent BJP on course for the next big electoral battle in Bihar, where it and its ally, the Janata Dal (United), will take on INDIA members — the Congress and the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD).
The Opposition will have to chart its future course of action against this backdrop — and redefine the contours of unity in a reconfigured battlefield.
