BJP, Cong deny AAP effect in Chhattisgarh

Raipur, January 13

While Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is getting massive response to its 17-day free membership drive under which it has targeted to make one crore new members across the country, the ruling BJP and opposition Congress in Chhattisgarh think that the one-year-old party had no impact in the State and it would never be able to pose threat to them in upcoming general elections.

However, unruffled by assertions of BJP and Congress, AAP is gradually expanding its domain in tribal-populated State, especially in urban areas where educated people are feeling more connected with it after too many of their likes deciding to clean-up politics by joining Arvind Kejriwal’s bandwagon.

After closely analysing latest scenario in State, the political pundits think that AAP has potential to frustrate both BJP and Congress in Lok Sabha polls by denting their vote-bank.  

The BJP and Congress also admit that the State may witness close contest in few seats if AAP manages to collect three-four percent votes.

The two mainstream parties are already concerned over impact of none of the above (NOTA) option in electronic voting machines (EVMs). This option was included for the first time by Election Commission during recently held assembly polls in five states including Chhattisgarh. NOTA got 3.07 percent votes in State.

The people connected to AAP say the vote percent of NOTA will surely shrink with AAP emerging as third alternative party in ensuing polls in State.

Meanwhile, a new debate has started in State as which party would incur more loss with emergence of AAP. Considering BJP’s increased urban presence and AAP’s primary focus in cities and towns, the political analysts think that the saffron party might have to bear the brunt of AAP’s establishment. In recent polls, BJP maintained its dominance in over 80 percent of urban areas as its vote share was much more than Congress and others.

The BJPians do not agree with this logic. Pointing that corruption at Centre would be major issue in LS polls and both BJP and AAP would raise it strongly, they said it would be Congress whose poll equations would spoil in such circumstance.

Since AAP has not contested any election in State, the people can only surmise about its impact. Nonetheless, the party has indicated of contesting over 300 seats across the nation. In Chhattisgarh, it is likely to field candidates in all 11 seats. In this connection, it had recently conducted survey in Bastar and other parts of the State.

The BJP has received 3.5-8 percent more votes than Congress in last four LS polls from 1998 to 2009 in Chhattisgarh. Now, with AAP in fray, it would be interesting to see whether battle would be as usual between BJP and Congress or evenly balanced between all the three parties.