Will the TRS, TMC, DMK and AAP come together to rehash the failed front model all over again? This would mean that this alliance would pitch Arvind Kejriwal on the national scene as a challenger to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
In the aftermath of the victory in Delhi by the Aam Admi Party, there are talks about the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
Ahead of the 2019 elections, almost all parties had come together to defeat the BJP, but they failed miserably in their endeavour. Now, some feel that there is a possibility of the TRS, TMC, DMK and AAP coming together to rehash the failed front model all over again.
This would mean that this alliance would pitch Arvind Kejriwal on the national scene as a challenger to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
K Krishna Saagar Rao, chief spokesperson of the BJP, Telangana state, feels that these parties have an inherent personal greed for selfish power, which can never bring them together as an electoral coalition.
If the regional parties should get together against the BJP, they necessarily need a national party to galvanise them. Congress is on the death bed and its leader draws no respect or power to guide and lead a large coalition of regional parties, Rao said.
Arvind Kejriwal is not a generational politician, who can work together with the age-old family political enterprises and shrewd regional political satraps.
BJP doesn't believe a functional regional coalition or a front is possible in contemporary Indian politics, while there will surely be a fresh attempt to restart a high decibel campaign against the saffron party nationally, Rao further contended.
While the AAP’s record has been good in the Delhi Assembly circuit, there is not much to speak about in the regional scene or even in other states. Kejriwal has campaigned unsuccessfully outside of Delhi several times, but has failed to make any impact.
In the 2014 elections, the AAP won just four of the 434 seats it contested. Moreover, all these wins were in Punjab and not Delhi, where it had bagged 32 seats in the 2013 Delhi elections.
In the 2017 Goa elections, the party lost all seats and in Haryana, of the 40 seats it contested, the party managed to win just one. The case was similar in Maharashtra where it lost all the 24 seats it contested.
The AAP made some adjustments in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. The party fielded candidates in Delhi, Chandigarh, Bihar, Goa, Punjab, Andaman and Nicobar, Haryana, Odisha and Uttar Pradesh. However, only one of its candidates from Sangrur in Punjab was able to win the polls. In all, the AAP had fielded 40 candidates.
Last Updated Feb 12, 2020, 6:42 PM IST