‘Ate into Congress’ space’ — how AAP’s entry in Gujarat polls worked to BJP’s benefit

AAP’s absence could have helped Congress — which won in 17 seats — secure 33 more and might have brought BJP’s tally down from 156 to 123 in the assembly.

Photo credit: Suraj Singh Bisht, ThePrint

New Delhi: The Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) presence in Gujarat polls gave the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) an advantage in 33 seats, which ended up with an all-time high tally of 156 in the 182-member assembly.

The votes secured by the AAP and Congress candidates together were more than what the BJP candidates secured on each of these 33 seats, an analysis of election results by ThePrint shows.

Of these 33, 17 were in the state’s Saurashtra region, where the Congress had done very well during the 2017 assembly elections, winning 28 of 48 seats. The party’s tally in Saurashtra came down to three this time. Another 13 of these seats were in the tribal region of Gujarat, traditionally a Congress stronghold.

These figures seem to validate senior Congress leader Pawan Khera’s argument that the “AAP ate into the Congress’ space” in Gujarat. The AAP’s absence would have helped the Congress — which won in 17 seats — secure 33 more seats and might have brought the BJP’s tally down to 123 in the assembly.

The AAP could, however, also claim that if the Congress was not in the fray, it would have got 12 seats more (including seven in Saurashtra region), in which the AAP came second and the Congress third.

Overall, the AAP secured five seats in the 182-member assembly and was a runner-up in 35 others. The Congress came second in 119.

Of the AAP’s five seats, four were in Saurashtra region. It defeated the Congress in Jamjodhpur and Visavadar and the BJP in Botad and Gariadhar. The AAP secured its fifth seat in Dediapada, a tribal dominated seat held by the Bharatiya Tribal Party earlier.

Calling AAP a ‘de-ideologised’ party, Congress leader Pawan Khera told ThePrint, “This election is an eye opener for us. This brings us insight into the voter’s mind. We want to analyse what voters want. Do they want a transactional relationship with the party in power? AAP fights elections over freebies, not issues or ideology.”

“(Arvind) Kejriwal calls himself Modi’s Challenger, but ends up eating into the Congress’ space. I think he does not know which vote he is targeting. He played soft Hindutva politics here, kept chanting Laxmi and Ganesh, did not speak a word over the Bilkis Bano issue,” added Khera.

Political observers say the AAP played the role of ‘vote-cutter’.

“Apart from winning five seats, AAP has played a crucial role in damaging the Congress. Instead of becoming a national challenger to (Narendra) Modi, it has actually dented the Congress vote bank in a massive way. Since a very minor role was played by the AIMIM (All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen) or other Independents in getting a good chunk of votes, it was AAP that ensured a humiliating defeat for Congress,” said Hari Desai, a Gujarat-based political analyst.

AAP’s tryst with Patidars

The AAP had projected itself as a major contender for the influential Patidar vote bank after it won 27 seats in the Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC) election in February 2021. It came a couple of months after the AAP had appointed Gopal Italia, a Patidar leader, as the convenor of the party’s Gujarat unit. The Congress had drawn a blank in all 120 wards of the SMC, a Patidar bastion, in the 2021 election.

In the assembly elections, the AAP couldn’t win a single seat in Surat that elects 16 MLAs. The AAP came second in nine of these seats, and the Congress in seven.

This time in Surat, while BJP has swept all 16 seats, in Mandvi, which was previously held by Congress, AAP bagged 49,108 votes. The margin of win for BJP’s Kunvarjibhai Halpati over Congress’ Anandbhai Chaudhari in Mandvi was 18,109. Similarly, in Mahuva, the BJP candidate defeated the Congress candidate by 18.54 percentage points of vote share, while AAP candidate’s vote share was over 20 per cent.

In the Patidar-dominated Saurashtra region, the AAP did make its presence felt, winning four of the region’s 48 seats — wresting all of them from the BJP, which won 38 — and came second on 14 seats. The Congress, which had won 28 seats in Saurashtra in 2017, could secure only three this election and was runner up in 26.

Saurashtra is the biggest region in Gujarat, sending 48 MLAs to the assembly. The region alone covers 11 districts — Surendranagar, Morbi, Rajkot, Jamnagar, Devbhumi Dwarka, Porbandar, Junagadh, Gir Somnath, Amreli, Bhavnagar and Botad.

AAP spokesperson Nitin Barot told ThePrint, “We had nothing. Whatever we are getting now is profit for us. Not just in Saurashtra, our vote share is increasing in the whole of Gujarat. It is certain that the AAP is becoming a national party. This is final. Kisan Andolan in Saurashtra is helping us and supporting us. Berozgar Andolan is also helping us.”

In 2017, the Congress had bagged 15 out of 27 reserved seats of tribals, and the BJP had won nine. In the 2022 election, the AAP won in the Dediapada seat and came second in nine.

The AAP’s presence in the electoral fray spoiled the Congress’ chance in 13 seats in the tribal belt where combined votes of the two parties on each seat were more than those of the BJP. The Congress had won nine of these 13 seats in 2017, showing the extent of damage the AAP caused to the principal opposition party in the tribal region.

(Edited by Zinnia Ray Chaudhuri)