Congress helped AAP win in Delhi by doing nothing

Congress’s absence from the Delhi elections worked in the favour of Aam Aadmi Party but what does this say for the Senior Congress Leaders who are taking BJP’s defeat as a win for the Congress? While the fact remains that non-interference of Congress in the Delhi elections has strengthened the opposition by letting a regional leader take over the National Capital once again but Congress’s decimation from the Delhi elections once again shows that the party that ruled the country for ages has been reduced to nothing in the grassroots.

It is understandable that the main cause of Kejriwal’s win in the Delhi elections was Aam Aadmi Party’s developmental efforts through the five years it remained in power, the absence of Congress also worked heavily towards consolidating the vote-bank of people who simply wished to vote against BJP. But while this anti-BJP sentiment always worked in the favour of Congress in the past and remained their election strategy, now they might have to rethink their political stance as being an active participant in elections rather than a passive afterthought.

AAP’s win has paved way for a new kind of politics which focuses on the common issues of the masses and it reminds me of the words of an auto-rickshaw driver in Delhi a year ago, “If people vote for Congress, BJP will win. But if it is BJP v/s AAP, AAP will win. They have done the work, but there is a cadre of Congress in Delhi still. For AAP to win, they must take a backseat.”

Funny, how even a commoner has that much insight about the political atmosphere of Delhi, but then again, sometimes you just need to hear the people’s voices instead of the analysts or the leaders who sit in the studio, making remarks or Tweet with over-confidence.