For the Delhi-based Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), winning a seat in the 2022 Guwahati Municipal elections was not exactly a major victory, but it certainly helped in consolidating its position as the undisputed front runner among regional parties in India, currently ahead of the Trinamool Congress (TMC). The political significance of the AAP’s victory, as the party contested these elections for the first time, went well beyond the number of seats won. Masooma Begum, the party’s candidate contesting the minority-dominated ward 42, won convincingly. Along with the local Assam Jatiya Parishad (AJP) party also winning one seat, the AAP could claim to have resisted the massive victory sweep of the ruling NDA (BJP/AGP) coalition which ended up bagging 58 out of the 60 wards. The BJP won in 52 wards against the AGP’s victory in 6.
Most state-based observers said the outcome was not surprising given current political trends in Assam. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP president JP Nadda and state chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma thanked the people of Guwahati for their support. So did Arvind Kejriwal, AAP leader and chief minister of Delhi, as he congratulated Begum. The Indian National Congress, the biggest Opposition party, ended up not for the first time, as the worst losers, failing to win a single ward. Most post-poll analyses indicated that pro-Congress voters, especially Muslims, had voted for the AAP in many areas, ditching the grand old party. In part the sad story of the Assam Congress is not very different from that of its other state units wherever it is in the Opposition – a major failure of the top leaders to help/inspire local candidates and workers, lack of any effective program or rallying slogan, inadequate resources and the usual infighting at local levels. Nor was Congress’s defeat restricted to Guwahati only. Senior Congress leaders made their usual pre-poll claims about doing well in these elections according to Guwahati-based media reports. Altogether civic elections were held in 80 urban/semi-urban areas. The NDA won in 73 but the Congress could not win a single civic body.
BJP leaders accused both the AAP and the AJP of resorting to communal propaganda in their pre-poll campaign. As stated before, Muslims and other sections not supporting the NDA seemed to vote en masse for the AAP. A sure sign that minority and other votes had shifted to the AAP in a major way was the fact that candidates of the newly contesting party came second in over 20 wards, in contrast to the poor performance on part of Congress candidates. They mostly claimed third or lower positions. The outcome should provide much food for thought, mostly negative, for leaders of both the Congress as well as the All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) led by MP Badruddin Ajmal in the days ahead. In West Bengal too the results were followed closely by analysts. The fact is ruling TMC circles in Bengal, determined to make their mark before the 2024 Lok Sabha elections as the strongest and most determined political challengers of the ruling BJP, have every reason to be as unhappy as Congressmen over the GMC poll results. With the AAP upstaging the TMC both in the East and the West and about to launch a fully functional unit in Bengal next, the TMC’s ambitions to emerge as the leading regional party to challenge the BJP all over India may not be easy to achieve.
