Lok Sabha election day is approaching. The election notification is likely to be announced in the first week of March. In such a situation, the ruling BJP has sounded the poll bugle across the country, but the opposition is yet to prepare for the election battle with full force.
In the country’s largest states of Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Haryana and Gujarat, the seat-sharing agreement between the Congress and the opposition political parties is almost final. In Uttar Pradesh, which has 80 seats, the Congress has completed the seat-sharing arrangement with the Samajwadi Party.
Of these, the Congress will field candidates in 17 seats and the Samajwadi Party will field candidates in 62 seats. Another ally will field a candidate on one seat.
Similarly, out of the total 7 seats in Delhi, the AAP will leave 3 seats to the Congress by keeping 4 seats with it. The seating understanding of AAP and Congress for Haryana and Gujarat is also almost complete. The Congress will give up a total of 3 seats to the AAP in the two states.
It may be recalled that in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the BSP had won 10 seats in the state. The Samajwadi Party won only 5 seats. The BJP alone won 62 seats.
That time, the BJP got 50 per cent of the total votes. The Bahujan Samajwadi Party got 19.4 per cent votes and the Samajwadi Party 18.1 per cent. The Congress got only 6.4 per cent of the votes. In such a scenario, without the Bahujan Samaj Party, it will be interesting to see how the opposition will stop the BJP in Uttar Pradesh.
Similarly, in Delhi, the BJP won seven of the seven seats in 2014 and 2019. The bjp’s vote share in Delhi in 2014 was 46.6 per cent. This is 56 in 2019. It has gone up to 9 per cent. Similarly, AAP’s votes have dropped significantly in Delhi in 2019 as compared to 2014. The Congress, however, has grown to some extent.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections in Haryana, the NDA had won 10 of the 10 seats. The NDA had won seven seats in the state in 2014. The UPA had won a seat in 2014 but lost the seat in 2019.
It has increased from 23 per cent of the votes polled by the Congress in 2014 to 28.5 per cent in 2019. While the Congress has a seat-sharing agreement with the AAP in the state, other parties, including the BSP, have some mass base. It will also be interesting to see how the Congress negotiates with these parties.
In such a scenario, whether the Congress is content with seat-sharing only with the AAP in states where the Samajwadi Party and the BJP has a strong base like Delhi, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh or reach an understanding with other parties with equal importance.