No Such Thing As 'Silent' Campaign In Hard-Fought Election, Says Chidambaram After Guj Poll Debacle

He further said, in an interview with PTI, that the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) acted as a spoiler in Gujarat, as it had previously done in Goa and Uttarakhand.

New Delhi: Senior party leader P Chidambaram stated on Sunday that the Congress is best positioned to be the "pole" around which a non-BJP front may be constructed for the 2024 general elections and claimed that the Aam Aadmi Party does not have much popularity outside of Delhi, with the exception of Haryana and Punjab.

Chidambaram further said that there are lessons to be learned by Congress from the Gujarat defeat. He also emphasised that there is no such thing as a "quiet" campaign in a closely contested election, reported a news agency PTI.

He further said, in an interview with PTI, that the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) acted as a spoiler in Gujarat, as it had previously done in Goa and Uttarakhand.

As per his analysis of the most recent elections for the Gujarat Assembly, the Himachal Pradesh Assembly, and the Municipal Corporation of Delhi, he suggested that Prime Minister Narendra Modi should take into account the fact that the BJP was in power in all three yet lost in two.

He said, "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 Congress in Himachal and the AAP in MCD polls won by a decisive margin of seats, he pointed out.

He added, "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."

When questioned about the Congress' misfortune in Gujarat and the understated campaign there, Chidambaram claimed that he was not entirely familiar with the strategy, if any, employed there. He responded by saying, "My sense was the Congress did not have great expectations in Gujarat. As a general rule, I believe that in every election the party must put its best forward and throw into the battle all the available resources - human, material and digital. I also believe that there is no such thing as a 'silent' campaign in a hard-fought election. There are lessons to be learnt from the Gujarat loss."

In response to the question of whether the AAP, which recently won the MCD elections and received roughly 13% of the vote in Gujarat, would challenge the Congress' leadership of the Opposition block, Chidambaram stated that the AAP's victory was not unexpected given that it is the present administration in Delhi.

He opined that the Congress was not a serious opponent and that the BJP was burdened by its 15 years of dominance in the MCD.

According to him, the results of the next state elections in 2023, along with the outcomes of the just completed three elections in 2022, will determine the candidates for the Lok Sabha elections in 2024.

He concluded by saying, "How well the BJP will do and how well the Congress and other non-BJP parties will do in the state elections will undoubtedly play a major role in determining the outcome of the Lok Sabha elections."

(With inputs from PTI)