At 4:3, AAP-Cong seat pact to check division of votes in city

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Congress, the two major political rivals in Delhi, joined hands on Saturday to take on the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) on all seven Lok Sabha seats in the Capital.

- Alok KN Mishra

The AAP, both parties announced at a joint conference, will field candidates in West Delhi, South Delhi, East Delhi and New Delhi Lok Sabha constituencies, while the Congress will contest in the North East Delhi, North West Delhi and Chandni Chowk seats.

The relative performance of these parties in 2019, when they fought separately, offers some indication on why the seats were divided up in this manner. For instance, Congress got 29.67% vote share in Chandni Chowk, its best performance, which was followed by 28.85% of the votes it received in North East Delhi seat. Both these constituencies are home to people of different castes, communities and other voting blocs, including lower middle-class voters residents of unauthorised colonies and JJ clusters and Muslim populations - these are considered to be among the traditional Congress voter base.

To be sure, the BJP won all seven seats in both the past Lok Sabha elections. In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the party received 56.6% of the votes in all, while the AAP got 18.11% and the Congress 22.51%. In each of the seats, the BJP won more than 50% of the vote share. That year, the BJP, Congress, and AAP were in a triangular contest in all seven seats after the Congress-AAP alliance talks failed despite Congress leader Rahul Gandhi proposing a 4 (AAP)- 3 (Congress) formula at the time.

In those elections, AAP beat Congress's vote share only in two constituencies: North West Delhi and South Delhi.