NEW DELHI: After Aam Aadmi Party listed BJP-governed Punjab, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh and Odisha as the party’s next electoral targets, it was the Congress leadership that was jolted by the announcement more than BJP. The Congress camp feels the real target of AAP is to capture the Opposition spaces Congress has abandoned, in some cases for decades.Apart from defending itself from the BJP surge, Congress will now have to fend off the AAP raid on these bases. “AAP’s post-Delhi victory choice of next five states has been clinically planned, more with an eye on Congress’ failure as an Opposition party than the vulnerability of BJP. The speed with which AAP captured the Congress space in Delhi offers a warning of the challenge the party faces.If the Kejriwal government does well, we will be in for more trouble,” a seasoned Congress leader said. With 4 LS seats and a decent vote share in assembly and civic polls in Punjab, the state is seen as fertile ground for the 2017 assembly elections. This means AAP could challenge the hitherto Congress-Akali/BJP bipolar politics and be a potent claimant for the anti-incumbency vote Congress seeks. In the other four states, Congress has gifted BJP a free run for long.The last Congress government in Gujarat was headed by Chabildas Mehta in 1995. In MP and Chhattisgarh, Congress rule ended in 2003 and in 1999 in Odisha. Several experiments to revive the party units in the five states have come cropper due to infighting, lack of credible leader and organisational lethargy. “So, understandably, post-Delhi victory, AAP wants to project itself as the new force capable of replacing Congress to take on BJP.AAP seems in no hurry to target Bihar, UP, West Bengal or Assam where polls would be held even earlier and where BJP is surging,” said an AICC functionary. Congress anxiety is understandable given its dismal track record in wresting lost citadels. The party has crumbled in UP and Bihar after it lost power in 1989.After the fall of the last Congress government in Tamil Nadu in 1967, Congress has been in exile to close to half-a-century and almost 40 years in West Bengal. Congress’ post-defeat bounce-backs are limited to Kerala, Karnataka, Rajasthan, Himachal, Haryana, Punjab, Uttarakhand and north-east states. What has complicated matters for the party is that its long-time bastions Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra have been captured. As AAP tries to claim the centrist and left-of-centre space of Congress and Left, there is a growing realisation at AICC that the party should re-position for that receding space.That explains Congress agitation against NDA move on land-acquisition ordinance, Rahul Gandhi vowing to fight for the “poor and trials till my last breath” etc. “Yes this is a testing time but Congress still remains the largest pan-Indian Opposition with the potential to re-merge as the national alternative to BJP, provided Rahulji changes his own style and that of the party’s and lead a struggle on the streets 24X7 by lining up credible leaders,” said a CWC member, more worried than hopeful.