Faced with the imminent threat of three powerful youth movement leaders — including Hardik Patel and Alpesh Thakor — backing the Congress, the BJP is interestingly banking upon its one-time bitter rival, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), to sharpen its prospects on at least over a dozen seats in the upcoming Gujarat polls. Assembly elections in Gujarat are likely in December and the BJP is seeking a fifth consecutive victory.However, this is the first BJP election since 15 years that the BJP is fighting without Narendra Modi as the Chief Minister. Top sources confirmed to Ahmedabad Mirror that the BJP “is contented with the list of 11 candidates declared by the AAP in Gujarat”. We have evaluated these candidates. None of them is capable to win but they will for sure dent into Congress vote bank and thereby benefit us,” a BJP leader said.At least 10 of the 11 seats that the AAP has declared its candidates for are seats where the saffron party is on a shaky wicket because of the ongoing Patel and OBC agitations in Gujarat. These are seats where the agitation has made a visible impact. These 11 seats also include five Assembly seats of Bapunagar, Lathi, Chhota Udepur, Padra and Karjan which the BJP won with a margin of less than 5,000 votes in the last elections. “With the ongoing agitations, majority of these 11 seats are a challenge for us. In this case, we know that the AAP will dent into the Congress vote bank and thereby indirectly help us,” a BJP leader said.The AAP leaders have denied these claims vehemently. Talking to Mirror, the AAP spokesperson and State media coordinator Harshil Nayak rubbished the claims as baseless. “After our defeat in Punjab assembly election, the AAP was working on a strategy. As part of this strategy, we have decided to contest polls on seats where we find good candidates and have a strong grassroots set up.” Nayak further added that the party has declared only 11 candidates so far.“Fifty more candidates are under review. If the Congress is so sure that we are helping the BJP, I would want to ask them: Can the Congress assure that it will defeat the BJP if the AAP does not field any candidates in the remaining seats?” he said. He also added that if it is the BJP that the Congress wants to fight, it should not contest on any Delhi seats in the 2020 state assembly election. Harshil articulated the rigorous process his party has adopted to select candidates.Quoting Gujarat in charge Gopal Rai (whom Mirror tried to contact but he remained unavailable), Harshil said, “We are anti-BJP. We have a democratic right to contest. The Congress has been claiming that we do not have any infrastructure to give a good fight. In this case, if the Congress assures us that it would defeat BJP we will not announce any more candidates. Also, Congress cannot decide or order us not to contest in Gujarat polls.” However, senior Congress leader Arjun Modhwadia categorically told Mirror that the AAP was working as the BJP’s B team.“The AAP has declared candidates for 11 seats. I am confident that it will not win any of these seats most of its candidates will lose their deposits. However, they will hurt us very badly in all these seats. He added, “If the AAP is really serious about fighting the BJP, why is it fighting the Congress? A third force has always damaged the Congress in Gujarat and the AAP knows this. Why is it helping the BJP?” Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani is contesting on Rajkot (West) seat. Against him is young the Congress MLA Indranil Rajyaguru. However, the AAP’s Rajesh Bhut is likely to dent Congress votes.Similar is the case in Bapunagar, Unjha, Gondal, Lathi, Padra, Karjan and Kamrej where Hardik Patel’s ongoing agitation for reservation has had a very positive impact and has threatened BJP’s victory. Out of the 11 seats on which the AAP has declared candidature, only Danilimda and Chhota Udepur are currently with the Congress. The rest are with the BJP. Danilimda has sizeable Muslim population and Chhota Udepur has a tribal majority. On both these seats, the AAP candidates will hurt the Congress. Another senior Congress leader told Mirror, the BJP can win majority of these seats with the help of the AAP, NCP and Jankvikalp parties.“The Janvikalp is a front floated by former Congress leader Shankersinh Vaghela. If each of these parties even bag a thousand votes each, the BJP can manage to win. The BJP won four of these 11 seats with a vote margin of less than four thousand in 2012, despite a strong pro-BJP wave and with Narendra Modi as the CM. When contacted State Gujarat BJP chief Jitu Vaghani denied the claims, saying I do not want to comment on this issue.