The Congress is best placed to be the “pole” around which a non-BJP front can be built for the 2024 general elections, senior party leader P Chidambaram said on Sunday and asserted that the Aam Aadmi Party does not have much appeal outside Delhi with the exception of Haryana and Punjab.
Chidambaram also stressed that there were lessons to be learnt by the Congress from the Gujarat loss, saying there is no such thing as a “silent” campaign in a hard-fought election.In an interview with PTI, he also said the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) played spoiler in Gujarat, like it did earlier in Goa and Uttarakhand.
He weighed in on the recent elections in Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh assemblies and the Municipal Corporation of Delhi, saying Prime Minister Narendra Modi should reflect on the fact that the BJP was in power in all three but was defeated in two. “That is a huge setback for the BJP.
The win in Gujarat, important as it is, cannot hide the fact that the BJP, the incumbent, was defeated decisively in Himachal Pradesh and MCD,” the former Union minister said. The Congress in Himachal and the AAP in MCD polls won by a decisive margin of seats, he pointed out.
“The overall margin of votes in Himachal Pradesh may be small, but it was not a state-wide presidential kind of election. It was a constituency-wise election and we have to look at the margin in each constituency,” he said.
