LS polls: Congress, AAP tie-up aims to put up tough fight in Gujarat; BJP says its prospects unaffected
Gujarat is hoping to challenge the electoral hegemony of the BJP in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls, while the ruling party is confident the opposition alliance will not affect its prospects. The Congress-AAP alliance this time aims to give a tough fight and stop the division of anti-BJP votes.
In the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP won all 26 seats parliamentary seats in Gujarat, which is the home state of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, garnering more than 60 per cent of the vote share in both the elections.
In the 2022 Gujarat assembly elections, the Congress and the Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP contested separately, resulting in the division of opposition votes and leading the BJP to a huge win by bagging 156 out of the 182 seats in the state.
The BJP received around 51 per cent of the votes, the Congress secured 27.5 per cent votes and 17 seats, while the AAP got around 13 per cent votes and five seats.
A senior state Congress leader admitted that they lost in more than 40 assembly seats due to the division of votes between the grand old party and the AAP.
Notably, four Congress MLAs and one AAP legislator in the state have resigned in the last four months.
All 26 Lok Sabha seats in Gujarat will witness polling in a single phase on May 7 and votes will be counted on June 4.
Under the seat-sharing agreement, the Congress will contest 24 seats while the AAP will field its candidates in two seats — Bharuch and Bhavnagar.
«We are confident that after 10 years of the BJP's
