With the Congress-Aam Aadmi Party seat-sharing bid for the Haryana Assembly elections flopping, Rahul Gandhi’s one-bloc-against-everything-saffron ambition seems to have hit a stumbling block.
He had been insistent that the AAP ally with the Congress in Haryana, but his party leaders don't seem to be willing to give an inch to their former foe.
The AAP backed out of the alliance as the seats being offered were too few and reportedly too heavy (read BJP bastions), where it was not comfortable contesting.
The buzz was that from demanding 10 seats AAP had finally decided to contest in five, which the Congress reportedly whittled down to three.
The grand old party, a “mohabbat ki dukaan,” (shop of love) in Gandhi’s own words, should have shown some mohabbat (love), which means bending a little, giving a little.
It has nothing to lose, especially in Haryana where a strong anti-incumbency factor is said to be working against the BJP.
Not agreeing to AAP’s requests and expecting it to stand up to the BJP in seats it is likely to defend strongly makes Congress seem unyielding and arrogant – something that will not go down well with allies or voters.
However, the Congress leaders know they need to tot up the big numbers to win the polls at any cost, which is why probably, as a media outlet has reported, a senior party leader from Delhi was allegedly hell bent on “sabotaging” the seat-sharing talks with AAP.
Some Haryana Congressmen led by former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, too, were said to be against the idea.
Hooda, it’s being whispered, even walked out of a seat-sharing meeting.
Many of the party leaders have not forgotten that the very reason for AAP’s existence was its activism in the past to end “corruption” in the Congress Party.
That, and the headache of carrying along AAP MLAs should the alliance come to power could have put off Hooda and Co, given AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal’s famous impetuousness and penchant for insisting on his way being the highway in matters of governance.
AAP also needs to understand that its previous poor report from the state requires it to be more flexible.
At the moment there’s very little on its plate to bring anything substantial to the table for the Congress.
The party’s biggest crowd puller with his special brand of activism, Kejriwal remains behind bars.
Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann with his signature chutzpah can do some impactful campaigning, but other party leaders like Atishi, Manish Sisodia or even a Sanjay Singh do not have the ability to project victimhood like Kejriwal can to win over the hearts of those still unsure of which EVM button to press.
What also works against the party is that it has come a cropper in Haryana elections in the past. In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, AAP contested all 10 seats unsuccessfully, securing just around 0.5 per cent of the total votes polled.
In the Assembly polls the same year the party contested 46 of the 90 seats, but failed to win a single one.
Most of the party candidates lost their security deposits.
Interestingly, more people (0.53 per cent vote share) chose NOTA (None of the above) than AAP, which ended up with a vote share of 0.48 per cent.
After the failure of seat-sharing talks with Congress this time, AAP Haryana unit chief Sushil Gupta has said they will contest all the 90 seats in the Assembly.
Will it be a wise move? In Punjab, the party proved it had the strength to chip away at the opposition and people’s mindsets to take the reins of power.
But it should also realise that slow and steady wins the race.
AAP has to convince friendly parties that it is game for anything.
Even making a dent in BJP strongholds will give it the confidence to wield more bargaining power for future tie-ups with others.
Hanging on to the coattails of another party could be the best solution for the party at the moment while its embattled leaders face courts and clear their names, regain their strength and get back to business again.
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