Change of Heart? Why AAP and Congress are ready to bet on each other in Haryana

The crackdown of investigative agencies on AAP leaders in the Delhi excise policy case has pushed the party into a grudge battle with the BJP. (PTI Photo)

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Tuesday welcomed Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s idea of an alliance for the upcoming assembly elections in Haryana. “We welcome it. Our priority is to defeat the BJP. Our Haryana in-charge Sandeep Pathak and Sushil Gupta will discuss it and take a final decision and inform Arvind Kejriwal about it and a decision will be taken accordingly,” AAP’s Rajya Sabha member Sanjay Singh said.

Singh's remarks came in response to reports of Rahul saying that he was keen on forming an alliance with the AAP for the coming polls. The remarks assume significance since this is the first time that both parties have signalled their willingness for a tie-up after categorically ruling out the idea following the Lok Sabha elections.

Last month, senior Congress leader Kumari Selja, in an interview to news agency PTI, ruled out the possibility of an alliance with the AAP for the Haryana assembly polls and said her party was a strong player in the state, and will go alone in the elections.

Earlier this year, Delhi chief minister and AAP national convenor Arvind Kejriwal said that his party would contest the Haryana assembly polls in all 90 seats on its own strength.

So, what is it that caused the change of heart for AAP and Congress? The Congress, for one, senses a strong change in Haryana after its impressive performance in the Lok Sabha polls cut BJP’s seats in the state by half. BJP itself is on a shaky ground since it's battling 10 years of anti-incumbency and has lost a key ally in JJP.

AAP, on the other hand, maintains that its first priority is to defeat the BJP – a factor that got the INDIA bloc together for the general election. Its actions signal a realisation that the idea of collectively fighting a common enemy was worth considering. Both Congress and AAP also contested the Lok Sabha elections together in Haryana, Gujarat, Goa, Delhi and Chandigarh.

AAP sees Haryana as no less an opportunity to expand its footprint and replicate the success it saw in Punjab. However, the same election also highlighted that AAP's growth prospects are closely tied to Congress's performance in states where it directly competes with the BJP.

Beyond Delhi, all states where the AAP has forayed into – Goa, Uttarakhand, Gujarat to name a few - are those that have traditionally seen a Congress-BJP contest. AAP’s window for growth kept growing as the BJP continued its decimation of Congress in 2014 and 2019.

AAP now sees itself as a natural replacement for Congress in states where regional parties do not hold sway. Thus, it's understandable that the party would flirt with feelings of establishing itself as the primus inter pares in the Opposition cohort. Notably, it is now among the six national parties in India.

However, the incarceration of AAP leaders Arvind Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia appears to have forced the party’s hand and pushed it into a direct confrontation with the BJP. The crackdown of investigative agencies on AAP leaders in the Delhi excise policy case, which it has dubbed as a BJP-backed agenda, pushed the party into a grudge battle with BJP.

AAP now stands at a point where it sees political merit in joining hands with Congress, the so-called "lesser evil", to serve the larger objective of denying power to BJP. As its political rivalry with BJP escalates—especially ahead of Delhi assembly elections next years—AAP would not mind serving the short-term objective of pushing the saffron party to the wall.

Elections in Haryana are due in less than a month and with its top leader, Arvind Kejriwal, out of action, AAP would ideally like to grab whatever opportunity it has with both hands and make the most of it.

Both Congress and AAP probably realise that they cannot leave anything to chance, especially when BJP pulling out all the stops to quell the anger among farmers and youth. It has already announced several measures on sticky issues like MSP and Agnipath to offset the anti-incumbency factor.

Haryana elections are scheduled to be held in a single phase on October 5 and the results will be declared on October 8