Manoj Kumar Pathak
In the run-up to the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, let us ponder over the electoral mood of the national capital’s voters. The Emerging World’s analysis of all the recently held pre-poll surveys suggests all seven Delhi seats would go to the BJP if elections were held today. Now the question arises, Why do Delhi seats go to the BJP despite the AAP winning the Assembly polls decisively? Why does a state that has overwhelmingly voted for the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in two consecutive Assembly polls give all the Lok Sabha seats to the BJP? Experts say there are several factors at play.
The AAP made its debut in the 2013 Delhi election and managed to get 28 of the 70 Assembly seats. It formed a government in alliance with the Congress that didn’t last a full five-year term. In the elections of 2015 and 2020, the AAP won 67 and 62 seats, respectively.
The BJP, however, won all the seven Lok Sabha seats of Delhi in both 2014 and 2019. Despite a would-be Congress-AAP alliance, the pre-poll surveys show the BJP getting 57% of the vote share in Delhi. The AAP-Congress coalition if materializes, which would fare well in Punjab, fails to dent the BJP’s seats in Delhi.
“Punjab’s demographic composition is different from Delhi’s. It has always had an uneasy relationship with the Centre, even when the Congress party was in power in the 1970s and 80s,” Piyush Gautam, a poll analyst said. “This alliance [between the Congress and the AAP] in both Delhi and Punjab is not easy. Because in Punjab, AAP feels that they can gain these seats even without the Congress. So, you have seen the CM of Punjab making statements that we don’t need to have an alliance. And in Delhi, even if they come together, they will not be able to make any dent,” adds Gautam.
Why do two states give such different results with the same combination? One of the factors is different voting patterns in Assembly and parliamentary elections. “It’s a split vote, and it’s happening across India, across all the states. Every state, if you look into the vote share of the last assembly and the last Lok Sabha, you will see somewhere between 10% to 25% jump in favor of the BJP in Lok Sabha elections,” said Satyendra Singh, a political commentator.
There is an additional factor at work in Delhi that swings votes in favor of AAP in Assembly polls but doesn’t work for it in the Lok Sabha polls, according to political analyst Ramendra Dwivedi. “Delhi’s story is very simple. It is due to the Muslim vote that swings. In Assembly elections, Muslim votes tend to favor Arvind Kejriwal’s party, and in the Lok Sabha elections, they favor the Congress. So that is why there is a kind of mismatch,” Dwivedi said. Going by that logic, the seats of Chandni Chowk or East Delhi, where the minorities are in big numbers, could be foul areas of the Congress and the AAP. They can come together and put up a tough fight for the BJP.
However, what needs to be kept in mind is that the minority factor comes into play in Assembly elections because Assembly constituencies are smaller, and the numbers are enough to decide the fate of the seats. That isn’t the case in the Lok Sabha polls. Experts say that after the delimitation process of 2008, the entire composition of the Delhi seats has changed. In Delhi, there is not even a single Lok Sabha seat now that can be decided by voters of the minority community, according to the experts on The Emerging World.
Apart from that, the Modi factor plays an important role in the Lok Sabha election in Delhi like it does in most other places. That helps in the consolidation of votes for the BJP. The other reason could be that the people of Delhi still see the AAP as a regional party despite its efforts to grow in several states. So, multiple factors make Delhi seats go to the Aam Aadmi Party in Assembly polls but to the BJP in the Lok Sabha polls. That would even be the case if the 2024 Lok Sabha polls were held today or later on.
Another renowned political analyst Jeev Kant Jha said,’ Whether it will be a triangular fight or a direct contest with a single I.N.D.I.A candidate in each Lok Sabha seat in Delhi, the BJP is confident of maintaining its dominance over all seven Lok Sabha constituencies in the national capital for the third consecutive time.’ The party’s eagerness to maintain a 7-0 track record stems from its recent Assembly election victories and the discordant signals emerging from the rival I.N.D.I.A bloc on seat-sharing.
The AAP and the Congress are still determining the seats on which they will fight against the BJP, meaning that only one opposition candidate will face each BJP candidate. However, the buzz is that the AAP wants the Congress to fight on only two seats, while the Congress is keen on contesting at least three. If the seat-sharing talks fail, the two may be forced to go it alone on all seven seats.
BJP national vice president and Delhi unit in charge Baijayant Panda said that the BJP’s win in the recent assembly elections in Hindi heartland states has created a positive atmosphere for the party, and there should be no doubts about the results of the Lok Sabha elections.
“We are winning all seven seats in Delhi, but we will have to make efforts to increase the victory margin, for which we will have to contact the beneficiaries of the Central government schemes and talk to them,” said Panda. A source inside the I.N.D.I.A bloc said, “The contrast seen between the alliances in the recent elections raises many questions about whether it will continue till the Lok Sabha election or not.”
Psephologist Sanjay Dubey said that there is constant friction within the opposition alliance and the people who make decision for the I.N.D.I.A bloc has to take control of the alliance. Dubey added, “If they are agreeing upon it, then there should be further concrete steps. If there is a cricket team and there is no captain, who will give direction to the team?”
