Hyderabad: Though Aam Admi Party (AAP) has always projected itself to be a potential opposition of BJP but going by the Gujarat election results one can easily say Kejriwal and his men had eaten more into Congress vote bank than BJP.
When BJP has improved its vote share from 49.1 percent in 2017 to more than 53 percent in 2022 increasing its share by more than 4 percent, the vote share of Congress has come down from 41.4 percent in 2017 to a pathetic 26.9 percent in 2022. Interestingly enough when the Congress vote bank has shrunk by nearly 14.5 percent, AAP has made a remarkable gain of 12.9 percent, making it absolutely evident that the party has nibbled away the traditional vote bank of Congress.
More recently, in the 2019 general elections, the BJP had won all 26 parliamentary constituencies with 62.21 per cent vote share while Congress, with 32.1 percent vote share, had failed to score. Experts believe that Congress’ show was the worst in the Parliamentary election but it has touched a new bottom in this election making it evident that AAP’s entry has damaged Congress more than BJP.
The Aam Aadmi Party, having lost their deposit in all seats they contested in the 2017 Gujarat Assembly elections but it is obvious that AAP is getting a foothold in Gujarat which might change the binary politics of state. With close to 13 percent vote share AAP is likely to become a national party provided it wins just two seats and has a vote share of over 6 per cent.
For the Congress, whether its silent campaign, which Modi once referred to in one of his rallies not to fall prey to, has cut ice with people of Gujarat remains to be seen. Top leaders of the party were engaged in the Bharat Jodo Yatra undertaken by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi. He squeezed time from his foot-march to address two rallies in Gujarat.
In the 2017 Assembly polls, BJP won 99 seats and Congress 77 seats, while two seats went to BTP, one to NCP, and three to independents. Ahead of this month's elections, the BJP's number in the House stood at 110 and Congress at 60 after 20 MLAs who won on Congress seats switched over to the BJP in the last five years, three of them quitting just ahead of the elections.
