Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, July 16: Looking beyond the presidential poll, the Aam Aadmi Party, the ruling party in two states, has decided to go with the opposition in backing Yashwant Sinha for the presidential elections on Monday even while holding the NDA nominee Droupadi Murmu in high esteem.
“We have respect for (NDA candidate) Droupadi Murmu, but we will support Yashwant Sinhaji,” senior leader and Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh, announced after a meeting of the party’s Political Affairs Committee (PAC). The Delhi chief minister and the AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal chaired the meeting of the 11-member PAC held on Saturday in which the decision to back Sinha was taken after keeping all the parties guessing for the last one month or so.
The AAP is the only non-BJP, non-Congress party with governments in two states – Delhi and Punjab. It has 10 Rajya Sabha MPs from the two states including three from Delhi and 156 MLAs including 92 in Punjab, 62 in Delhi and two in Goa who will vote in the election.
Despite softening its stance when it comes to taking on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP from its early days of vociferous attacks and everyday run-ins, AAP insiders say the Arvind Kejriwal camp is fully committed to not being seen standing with the ruling party. Its main concern was the coming elections to Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh state Assemblies where the BJP is in power and the Congress the main opposition. By supporting Murmu, the AAP was unwilling to provide a handle to the Congress to term the party as the BJP’s ‘B’ team and capture the non-BJP space in the two states.
Besides, siding with the BJP would also have not played well as the AAP battles for Delhi minister Satyendar Jain, who has been arrested by the country’s financial crime fighting agency that reports to the centre. Kejriwal has been at the forefront of the fight, accusing the BJP of trying to settle political scores using central agencies and suggesting his deputy Manish Sisodia could be the next target.
The AAP also understands that it will need the support of other opposition parties if it plans to branch out of Delhi-Punjab and establish a greater national footprint, sources said. They said it was these considerations that tipped the balance in favour of Yashwant Sinha, who has been on an uphill campaign trail after being named the presidential candidate of opposition parties, including the Congress.
He was nominated after Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar, former West Bengal Governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi and National Conference leader Farooq Abdullah opted out of the race.
On June 21, after declaring Sinha’s candidature, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP)’s supremo Sharad Pawar had told reporters that though the AAP did not attend the joint opposition meeting to select the presidential nominee, the party would back Sinha. The Kejriwal-led party, however, chose not to reveal its cards till the eleventh hour. In fact, when Sinha visited Chandigarh earlier this week as part of his whirlwind tour across states for his campaign, he did not have any meeting with the AAP’s Punjab MLAs, which kept the suspense alive.
“The AAP will contest the Assembly polls in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh this year, where the BJP is in power and the Congress is the principal Opposition. It made no sense for the party to give a handle to the Congress to whip up the narrative that AAP is BJP’s B-team,” a senior AAP leader said.
Even in 2017, when the AAP ruled only Delhi and was the principal Opposition in Punjab, the party had declared its support for the then Congress-led Opposition’s Presidential candidate Meira Kumar just three days before the election. However, the Congress had kept the AAP away from the meetings of 17 Opposition parties, where Kumar’s name was decided.
This time, although the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress (TMC) and the NCP steered these Opposition deliberations, the AAP stayed away from them despite being invited. AAP sources attributed it to the party’s “discomfort” in sharing any common platform with the Congress. It also does want to be seen being led by parties like the TMC, which is also looking to occupy the space being vacated by a drifting Congress in a bid to emerge as the principal challenger to the BJP in national politics.
The AAP accounts for nearly 1.96 per cent votes in the Presidential Electoral College. The value of the votes of the party’s 10 Rajya Sabha MPs is 7,000, while its MLAs from Delhi (62), Punjab (92) and Goa (2) bring a collective vote value of 14,308 in the Presidential poll.
The AAP’s pledge to support Sinha would ensure he gets over 4 lakh votes, even as Murmu is comfortably poised to sail through the election by expectedly garnering at least 6.60 lakh votes. “The AAP has made it abundantly clear through its moves that politically it wants to grow by strengthening the perception that it is different from others. Being a part of large groups with no shared values except opposing the BJP does not help the AAP,” the source said.
Ms Murmu, however, is widely seen heading for an easy win in the election, with the support of several parties outside the BJP-led coalition and even a few in the opposition ranks. If elected, the 64-year-old will be the first tribal woman to become the President of India. Voting for the Presidential poll will take place on Monday and the counting of votes on July 21.