Many Congress leaders are weighing the option of moving to AAP and emerge as regional satraps in their respective states.
New Delhi: The Congress is likely to see a large number of defections in the coming days, especially where Assembly elections are scheduled for next year in the “Hindi belt” states, including Himachal Pradesh (November 2022), Gujarat (December 2022) and Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan (November 2023).
With the massive win of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in the recently concluded Punjab elections, Congress leaders—who are either disgruntled or have lost hope of the party reviving itself at the national level in the coming years—are weighing the option of moving to AAP and emerge as regional satraps in their respective states.
As of now, the AAP is now the only party apart from the BJP and the Congress that is in power in two states and hence post 10 March, the narrative that it is a viable option to Congress, has started penetrating down to the ground and has become a subject of discussion in small cities and in WhatsApp groups. The AAP, in these discussions, is being described as a new version of Congress and a party that does not cater to any specific caste or community, something that is common to almost every state or regional party. On 21 March, the AAP, which is riding high on a confidence that it had earlier experienced in February 2020 when it won on 62 seats in Delhi, announced state in-charge and election in-charge for 9 states that included Himachal Pradesh, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan. Among the most prestigious and difficult states, that of Gujarat has been given to Dr Sandeep Pathak, who was recently sent to the Rajya Sabha. The state last had a Congress CM during the 8th Assembly elections (1990-95). The past performance of the AAP in the states that will go to polls in the coming months, however, does not inspire much confidence as it has failed to cross even 1% vote share in these states. In the 2017 elections in Gujarat, the AAP got 29,509 votes with a 0.10% vote share. In the 2018 Assembly elections, the AAP had got 2,53,101 and 0.66% votes in Madhya Pradesh, in Chhattisgarh it had got 1,23,525 votes with 0.87% vote share. In Rajasthan, its vote share was 0.38% and got 136345 votes. The party did not contest the Assembly elections in Himachal Pradesh in 2017.
It is in this context that the AAP, as party sources told The Sunday Guardian, will be open to admit those Congress leaders who have a “clean record and those leaders who have a strong presence on the ground” as the party doesn’t have sufficient time to create a new leadership from the very scratch in states like Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat. “By the time elections happen in these two states (Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat), we will be eight months old in Punjab and we will be able to show the achievement of AAP in Punjab to the voters of Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat. We are working on a systematic plan, we are not in a rush,” a party strategist told The Sunday Guardian.