Congress faces stiff AAP challenge in Gujarat

New Delhi: The Congress is facing a considerable challenge from AAP in Gujarat after the grand old party failed to win even a single state in the last Assembly elections in the five states. It is in place to mention that wherever the AAP has set its foot, it has fractured the grand old party’s mandate—be it Delhi 10 years ago where it wiped out Congress from the state or in Punjab, where it pushed down the incumbent Congress to a meagre 18 seats. AAP also recieved 7% vote share in Goa which political observers believe was gained at the cost of the Congress. In Uttrakhand, just by entering months before the elections, the AAP was able to take 1% vote share.
In Gujarat, the AAP’s emergence is indicated by the recently held municipal corporation polls in early 2021. Arvind Kejriwal’s party debuted by winning 27 wards out of 120, throwing Congress out of the picture; the party was unable to win even a single seat there. Experts believe that the AAP could damage the BJP as well as the Congress, as the party is a double-edged sword in Gujarat and may cut both the party’s votes. Raghu Sharma, Gujarat unit incharge of Congress, told The Sunday Guardian, “How will you define whose vote share will they take? The question is will the AAP damage Congress or the BJP; I don’t think that the AAP will damage the Congress much. How much votes and whose votes the party will cut will depend upon the particular place. If it cuts votes in Surat, BJP will have to face an impact. AAP has a different situation in Gujarat, they don’t even have a single MLA there. Only two parties are there, Congress and the BJP. We can’t compare Gujarat with Punjab. In Punjab, they have been working for 10 years. They even had an MP there in 2014. Afterwards, they went on and became a principal opposition party in the state. The important point is, they were present there as a choice. In Gujarat, they have to work a lot to become a face. They also fought in Goa and Uttrakhand, what happened there?” As the BJP is allegedly facing anti incumbency in the state, political observers believe that there is high probability that BJP could lose more seats from its 2017 Assembly elections seat count of 99 out of 182. It is noteworthy to mention that in UP also, some political analysts presumed that the BJP was facing massive anti incumbency, but the party dropped underperforming sitting MLAs and gave tickets to another lot, and the party went on to win the elections.
A political campaign manager working with one of the political parties in Gujarat said, “Yes, AAP can affect Congress in the state; one factor is that there is a lot of anti incumbency for BJP, and Congress’ image in not that good here. In Punjab, there was an anti-incumbency against all the major parties who had ruled Punjab, they wanted to vote a new party there. In Gujarat, there is a perception among the people that BJP has been here since two decades, so they want change. It is not that the BJP hasn’t worked in Gujarat, but they say they need change. But, if you ask people in Gujarat who they will vote for, they will say they will vote for the BJP, they don’t consider Congress an option. Hardik Patel’s fame is waning, there are more powerful leaders like Nitin Bai Patel, Naresh Patel. Jignesh Mewani doesn’t have that influence, but we can say that he can win his seat.”