Will AAP-Congress alliance beat BJP in Lok Sabha 2024? A look at Delhi’s poll results since 2004

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Congress officially announced their seat-sharing deal for the Lok Sabha Elections 2024 on Saturday. The AAP will contest four of the seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi, while the Congress will test its fate on the remaining three seats.

Both the AAP and the Congress are part of the Opposition's INDIA bloc. The alliance of over 25 opposition parties was formed in a bid to take on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the upcoming general elections.

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But will the AAP-Congress alliance be able to beat the BJP in the Lok Sabha polls in 2024? Here's a look at how the national capital has fared in the past four general elections.

Seats won by BJP, Congress and AAP since 2004

In 2019, all seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi — Chandni Chowk, North East Delhi, East Delhi, New Delhi, North West Delhi, West Delhi and South Delhi — were won by the BJP. In 2014 too, the BJP won all these seats, defeating the Congress.

Before 2014, the Congress had won all seven Lok Sabha seats in the 2009 elections, while the party won six in the 2004 elections. The one seat the grand-old party lost to the BJP was won by a BJP candidate with a vote margin of just 3.34 percent.

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The AAP has never won a single Lok Sabha seat in Delhi.

Put more simply, the Congress had a hold on Delhi until 2014, when the BJP won an overall majority, making Narendra Modi the Prime Minister of the country.

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Vote share since 2004

While the BJP's vote share has considerably increased over the past four years, that of the Congress declined substantially in 2014. The Congress's vote share in 2009 was around 57 percent. It fell sharply to 15 percent in the 2014 elections.

The Congress's vote increased slightly to 22 percent in 2019, when the BJP's vote share jumped to around 57 percent.

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Meanwhile, the AAP, which never won a single seat in Delhi Lok Sabha Elections, had 33 percent vote share in 2014. This declined to 18 percent in the 2019 polls.

(Data source: Election Commission, IndiaVotes)

Congress-AAP alliance Vs BJP

Delhi has been a strongold of the Congress for 15 years (between 1998 and 2013). Meanwhile, AAP's Arvind Kejriwal has been the Chief Minister of the Union Territory since 2015.

Despite securing 18 percent vote share in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the AAP, in the 2020 Delhi Assembly Elections, had won 62 of the 70 seats, while the BJP won only eight and the Congress none. In 2015, the AAP had won 67 seats in the assembly polls. In the 2013 assembly polls, the AAP won 28 seats, while the BJP bagged 31 seats.

It now remains to be seen whether the Congress-AAP alliance be able to give a tough fight to the two-time winner BJP during the Lok Sabha elections.