Looking at from a conventional political prism, it made no sense for the Congress to back the Aam Aadmi Party form the new government in Delhi. AAP had stormed the Assembly elections on an anti-Congress, anti-corruption plank. Giant killer Kejriwal had thrashed Congress' chief minister Sheila Dikshit by a massive margin and the last thing Kejriwal would have expected in return was unconditional support from the same party he had vanquished at the hustings.
So why has the Congress suddenly turned so magnanimous? Is it genuine self-reflection which Rahul Gandhi spoke about or is a far more complex calculation at play? After being hammered by the BJP in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, Congress managers seem to have read the writing on the wall. They realise that a big defeat in the 2014 general elections is almost certain. And their attempt now is to try and limit the victory margin of their principal adversary Narendra Modi. And for this the party seems to be propping up the Aam Aadmi Party in the hope that Kejriwal will chip away at BJP's vote share especially in urban areas, where AAP's anti-corruption plank has struck the deepest chord.
Electoral data for the 2009 Lok Sabha elections from the battleground state of Maharashtra illustrates what the Congress is trying to achieve. In the build up to the elections, MNS chief Raj Thackeray was repeatedly threatening north Indians to respect Marathi manoos or leave Mumbai. Despite a massive clamour for his arrest, the Congress-NCP government dragged its feet on acting against Thackeray. MNS workers even went on a rampage across Mumbai and its adjoining areas forcing shops to down shutters and attacking taxis driven by north Indians.
The Congress-NCP could have put a swift end to the mindless violence and locked up Thackeray sending a strong message to the MNS to behave. Instead, the government allowed Raj Thackeray to emerge as a larger than life champion of the Marathi manoos. The police did not arrest Thackeray till the time the courts forced the government's hands. By then the MNS strongman had used the oxygen of media publicity to significantly enhance his stature among Marathi voters.
In the Lok Sabha elections that followed, the MNS managed to bag a major chunk of the Marathi votes, mostly in Sena strongholds, especially in urban areas around Mumbai. The BJP-Shiv Sena ended up losing on 10 out of the 11 seats on which Raj Thackeray's party put up candidates. The victory margin for the Congress-NCP candidates in the six seats of Mumbai, Thane, Nashik, Bhiwandi and Pune was less than the votes polled by MNS candidates, which means that hypothetically had the MNS not been in the fray, the BJP-Shiv Sena could have won 10 more seats than they eventually did. (See table 1)
In these elections, Congress-NCP landed a tally of 25 out of the 48 Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra while the BJP-Shiv Sena ended up with 20 seats. Had the MNS candidates not done so well, the BJP-Shiv Sena could have ended up with 30 seats and the Cong-NCP tally could have crashed to 15, completely altering the political equations of the state. (See table 2)
This strategy of propping up a foe with the aim of cutting the votes of the principal adversary is a devious and dangerous game. One that the Congress has played successfully in the past. The question is can the Congress pull off the same coup riding on the back of the Aam Aadmi Party in the Lok Sabha elections and limit Narendra Modi's gains. The India Today Group asked some of the country's leading pesphologists for their view.
C-Voter's Chief Editor Yashwant Deshmukh said, "AAP is a middle class phenomenon and the middle class is no longer only an urban phenomenon. There are 200 seats with a sizable middle class vote share. All these seats are now suddenly up for grabs. If AAP polls 5 per cent of the votes nationally, they will damage BJP on 50 odd seats. If they get 10 per cent of the national vote then they will damage BJP on 100 seats. And these seats will then become a toss up between the Congress and BJP. But if AAP crosses 15 per cent of the vote share the party will become a serious contender to grab a lot of these seats, like was the case in the Delhi elections.'
While Professor Sanjay Kumar of CSDS said, "Arvind Kejriwal has emerged as an attractive alternative to Modi, especially in urban centres. AAP will certainly eat into the popularity of Modi but the impact will be more on votes in urban areas and not so much on the BJP's seat share. AAP can make BJP lose 5 to 7 seats in the Lok Sabha elections but not more than that."
Economist and psephologist Surjit Bhalla, chairman of Oxus Investment said, "If AAP picks up vote share across the country in the same ratio as in Delhi they will damage the Congress much more than they damage the BJP. My calculation is that in the top 300 urban constituencies AAP is likely to pick up 7 seats which would have otherwise have most probably gone to the BJP."
Narendra Modi and the BJP top brass have been quite concerned about the possible damage caused by AAP in urban pockets and senior leaders been discussing the Kejriwal factor at length in internal meetings. However, in public the party tries to downplay the threat posed by AAP. Psephologist and a member of BJP's national election management group GVL Narsimha Rao told the India Today group, "Congress tried this vote-cutting strategy quite successfully in the 2009 elections in Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh. But after that the strategy flopped miserably in Punjab with Manpreet Badal's PPP and in Gujarat with Keshubhai Patel, both of whom were propped up by the Congress. This time the message has gone out that AAP is firmly with the Congress and therefore AAP cannot hope to take advantage of the anti-Congress wave nationally. They are now a part of the establishment and therefore not much of a threat to the BJP outside Delhi. If they don't do a good job governing Delhi over the next few months and if people get fed up with them, then they will not be a threat to Modi in Delhi either."
The Congress, however, dismisses the theory that the party is backing the Aam Aadmi Party in a bid to check mate Narendra Modi. Union Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting Manish Tewari said, "The support the Congress has lent to AAP was to ensure that the people of Delhi did not have to suffer another election. However, to extrapolate and conclude that this tactical decision was to keep out any one individual or party at the national level is an absolutely erroneous conclusion. The Congress has the strength to fight its own battles without having to lean on props."
The Aam Aadmi Party too debunks the charge that they are part of a fixed match with the Congress. AAP ideologue and ace psephologist Yogendra Yadav told the India Today Group, "It's a classic, too clever by half theory spun by Congress leaders in their south Delhi drawing rooms. The trouble with this script is that no Congressman and to be fair not even the Aam Aadmi Party has an idea of where, how much and at who's expense will this new force rise. In the absence of any credible evidence all this is entertaining speculation and no more."
India's electoral history shows that in most states where the Congress ceded ground to a regional player in the hope of short term gains, the party ended up hemorrhaging its long term prospects. Crippled by corruption charges the Congress has chosen to get into bed with the enemy in Delhi but the party could end up creating a frankenstein that will bite it later.
Source: IndiaToday
So why has the Congress suddenly turned so magnanimous? Is it genuine self-reflection which Rahul Gandhi spoke about or is a far more complex calculation at play? After being hammered by the BJP in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, Congress managers seem to have read the writing on the wall. They realise that a big defeat in the 2014 general elections is almost certain. And their attempt now is to try and limit the victory margin of their principal adversary Narendra Modi. And for this the party seems to be propping up the Aam Aadmi Party in the hope that Kejriwal will chip away at BJP's vote share especially in urban areas, where AAP's anti-corruption plank has struck the deepest chord.
Electoral data for the 2009 Lok Sabha elections from the battleground state of Maharashtra illustrates what the Congress is trying to achieve. In the build up to the elections, MNS chief Raj Thackeray was repeatedly threatening north Indians to respect Marathi manoos or leave Mumbai. Despite a massive clamour for his arrest, the Congress-NCP government dragged its feet on acting against Thackeray. MNS workers even went on a rampage across Mumbai and its adjoining areas forcing shops to down shutters and attacking taxis driven by north Indians.
The Congress-NCP could have put a swift end to the mindless violence and locked up Thackeray sending a strong message to the MNS to behave. Instead, the government allowed Raj Thackeray to emerge as a larger than life champion of the Marathi manoos. The police did not arrest Thackeray till the time the courts forced the government's hands. By then the MNS strongman had used the oxygen of media publicity to significantly enhance his stature among Marathi voters.
In the Lok Sabha elections that followed, the MNS managed to bag a major chunk of the Marathi votes, mostly in Sena strongholds, especially in urban areas around Mumbai. The BJP-Shiv Sena ended up losing on 10 out of the 11 seats on which Raj Thackeray's party put up candidates. The victory margin for the Congress-NCP candidates in the six seats of Mumbai, Thane, Nashik, Bhiwandi and Pune was less than the votes polled by MNS candidates, which means that hypothetically had the MNS not been in the fray, the BJP-Shiv Sena could have won 10 more seats than they eventually did. (See table 1)
In these elections, Congress-NCP landed a tally of 25 out of the 48 Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra while the BJP-Shiv Sena ended up with 20 seats. Had the MNS candidates not done so well, the BJP-Shiv Sena could have ended up with 30 seats and the Cong-NCP tally could have crashed to 15, completely altering the political equations of the state. (See table 2)
This strategy of propping up a foe with the aim of cutting the votes of the principal adversary is a devious and dangerous game. One that the Congress has played successfully in the past. The question is can the Congress pull off the same coup riding on the back of the Aam Aadmi Party in the Lok Sabha elections and limit Narendra Modi's gains. The India Today Group asked some of the country's leading pesphologists for their view.
C-Voter's Chief Editor Yashwant Deshmukh said, "AAP is a middle class phenomenon and the middle class is no longer only an urban phenomenon. There are 200 seats with a sizable middle class vote share. All these seats are now suddenly up for grabs. If AAP polls 5 per cent of the votes nationally, they will damage BJP on 50 odd seats. If they get 10 per cent of the national vote then they will damage BJP on 100 seats. And these seats will then become a toss up between the Congress and BJP. But if AAP crosses 15 per cent of the vote share the party will become a serious contender to grab a lot of these seats, like was the case in the Delhi elections.'
While Professor Sanjay Kumar of CSDS said, "Arvind Kejriwal has emerged as an attractive alternative to Modi, especially in urban centres. AAP will certainly eat into the popularity of Modi but the impact will be more on votes in urban areas and not so much on the BJP's seat share. AAP can make BJP lose 5 to 7 seats in the Lok Sabha elections but not more than that."
Economist and psephologist Surjit Bhalla, chairman of Oxus Investment said, "If AAP picks up vote share across the country in the same ratio as in Delhi they will damage the Congress much more than they damage the BJP. My calculation is that in the top 300 urban constituencies AAP is likely to pick up 7 seats which would have otherwise have most probably gone to the BJP."
Narendra Modi and the BJP top brass have been quite concerned about the possible damage caused by AAP in urban pockets and senior leaders been discussing the Kejriwal factor at length in internal meetings. However, in public the party tries to downplay the threat posed by AAP. Psephologist and a member of BJP's national election management group GVL Narsimha Rao told the India Today group, "Congress tried this vote-cutting strategy quite successfully in the 2009 elections in Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh. But after that the strategy flopped miserably in Punjab with Manpreet Badal's PPP and in Gujarat with Keshubhai Patel, both of whom were propped up by the Congress. This time the message has gone out that AAP is firmly with the Congress and therefore AAP cannot hope to take advantage of the anti-Congress wave nationally. They are now a part of the establishment and therefore not much of a threat to the BJP outside Delhi. If they don't do a good job governing Delhi over the next few months and if people get fed up with them, then they will not be a threat to Modi in Delhi either."
The Congress, however, dismisses the theory that the party is backing the Aam Aadmi Party in a bid to check mate Narendra Modi. Union Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting Manish Tewari said, "The support the Congress has lent to AAP was to ensure that the people of Delhi did not have to suffer another election. However, to extrapolate and conclude that this tactical decision was to keep out any one individual or party at the national level is an absolutely erroneous conclusion. The Congress has the strength to fight its own battles without having to lean on props."
The Aam Aadmi Party too debunks the charge that they are part of a fixed match with the Congress. AAP ideologue and ace psephologist Yogendra Yadav told the India Today Group, "It's a classic, too clever by half theory spun by Congress leaders in their south Delhi drawing rooms. The trouble with this script is that no Congressman and to be fair not even the Aam Aadmi Party has an idea of where, how much and at who's expense will this new force rise. In the absence of any credible evidence all this is entertaining speculation and no more."
India's electoral history shows that in most states where the Congress ceded ground to a regional player in the hope of short term gains, the party ended up hemorrhaging its long term prospects. Crippled by corruption charges the Congress has chosen to get into bed with the enemy in Delhi but the party could end up creating a frankenstein that will bite it later.
Source: IndiaToday
Bharat Mathakki Jai,
ReplyDeleteWe here by requesting Both Shiva Sena & M N Sena please join together for mutual benefit of National Intrest. BJP will gave up some seat for the same. 9seat for MNC, 18 seat for SS, RPI-3seat, SSS-1 BJP -14 all will be benefited out these alliance. Please give up for good cause of Hindhu unity pls... pls.....