Congress watched with bated breath on Monday as the results of the Chandigarh civic polls came out. They turned out to be mixed bags and a possible warning sign.
The slip of the Bharatiya Janata Party has given some relief to the Congress. But this has had an effect on the good performance of the Aam Aadmi Party. AAP’s first such attempt outside Delhi has yielded good results. And at the same time, the idea that has worried the Congress is whether AAP can be a real option for voters in next year’s Punjab elections.
According to an internal Congress poll, urban and Hindu votes will be as important to its victory as Sikh votes. Former chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh, who has joined hands with the BJP, expects the Hindu to capture the urban vote (about 38% of Punjab’s Hindu population). In the 2017 assembly elections, of the 77 seats that the Congress won, voters in almost 29 constituencies were predominantly Hindu or urban.
In fact, in the municipal elections held in Punjab in 2021, the Congress had won. This was the first election in the background of the peasant movement. The Captain hopes that he will take it away from the Congress.
The Chandigarh results have been demoralizing for the cadre as they will be used by the AAP to propel the claim that it has become a contender in Punjab. More importantly, AAP’s good performance comes at the cost of Congress. It is a matter of concern that the urban vote may shift to AAP or even the Captain-BJP alliance which has been strengthened by these results.
This is the reason why Congress has been working towards attracting and winning urban voters over the past few weeks. The inclusion of popular Punjabi singer and ‘youth icon’ Sidhu Moose Wala, reaching out to actor Sonu Sood and cricketer Harbhajan Singh is part of the party’s efforts to appeal to the youth and urban voters.
In fact, one of the reasons why the Congress leadership chose Navjot Singh Sidhu is also to take advantage of his popularity among the urban youth. It is no coincidence that Sidhu is spending a lot of time in universities and colleges to woo Punjab’s young urban voters.
This brings us to the question – is the AAP and the Congress likely to come together in the event of a hung assembly? Both parties have called it a strong ‘no’, but nothing can be completely ruled out in politics. In 2018, though AAP and Congress fought against each other in the Delhi elections, the Congress finally extended outside support to the Arvind Kejriwal government to keep the BJP at bay. It is quite possible that in a situation where the Captain Amarinder Singh-BJP alliance starts doing well, the Congress and you may want to come together to thwart them.
But the Congress has also learned the hard way that the hand it often clings to has devoured it. AAP and Trinamool Congress have developed at the expense of the Congress party.
Congress sources say that while it is disappointing that it lost the Chandigarh elections, it also gives hope to the fact that history has shown that Chandigarh voted separately from the state of Punjab. An important point is that while the BJP had a grip on the Chandigarh municipal elections, Punjab voted differently. This is the reason why at this time Congress is not looking much worried about AAP’s stellar performance. But she doesn’t want to take any chances.
In such a situation, sources say that in the coming days, she is planning to intensify her efforts to woo the urban voters. Many young Congress leaders like Sachin Pilot, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra will take their campaigns forward, mostly focusing on the cities or where the youth are. The threat to the Congress is not only from the AAP but also from the Captain-BJP alliance. The race for urban votes has begun.
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