In the 2013 State Elections, AAP came out as the largest party but without a working majority. Congress promised outside help and Mr Kejriwal became Chief Minister. He implemented several radical measures especially in the cheap supply of water and electricity, and control on the petty corruption for the lower strata of Delhi citizenry i.e. rickshaw drivers, hawkers, and those using two wheeled vehicles. AAP government was restricted without clear majority to do anything on one of the most serious manifesto pledges - Janlokhpal Bill - in other administrative matters also Kejriwal’s minority government was feeling suffocated and he and his government resigned on the 49th day. Immediately he focused his full attention and raised a vast legion of voluntary supporters to reach every segment of Delhi society.
Delhi is one of the smallest state in India, and does not have all the powers available to the 26 other states i.e. Bihar or Karnataka, and it’s total population is 17 million. It has both rural and urban constituencies within its small territory. One of the largest blocks of the electorate are government servants both in active employment and those who have retired from central government departments as well as the state employees. People from every nook and corner of India are thus residing in Delhi. The strategy of AAP was very clear. Though they contested a huge number of constituencies all over India in the General Election of May 2014, they won only 4 seats from the State of Punjab. All the seven Parliamentary seats in Delhi were won by the BJP.
AAP was totally focussed on Delhi and their defeat this time would have been the total demise of the party. For AAP a strong showing in Delhi was a must. There was no other alternative for all those who had assembled under the leadership of Arvind Kejriwal from various walks of life, mainly without political experience, but with excellent track records in their backgrounds and full of idealism.
Delhi is not Gujarat. It has remained the capital of India for a very long time. The residents of Delhi have thus a more awareness of the politics and therefore have higher expectations.
AAP have promises to perform
Now the incoming AAP government which will be sworn in today (14th February) at the historic Ramlila Ground in Delhi have a very difficult challenge ahead of them indeed. The opportunity has arrived based on their huge promises. The voters have responded in a bumper way and the AAP government now has to rise to the challenge and give effective administration and good governance. All very desirable but democracy has its own distractions or diversions. Let time prove them.
What went wrong in the BJP campaign? Narendra Modi campaigned all over India in a spectacular way and achieved a clear majority in the Lok Sabha, the lower house of Indian Parliament. He has promised so much and, though to a certain extent, he had a proven track record in Gujarat, governing a smaller state and a continent-like country are poles apart. This defeat in Delhi is inevitably the burden on the shoulders of Narendra Modi - after all he is the main and only star of his party. But there are several other fault lines to:
1. Arrogance of power and the over confidence of the highest to the lowest leaders of the BJP.
2. Intake of so many from several parties has conveyed a wrong message to the traditional supporters of the BJP. ‘Aaya ram; Gaya ram’ is common everywhere but presently more common in India. When say Kiren Bedi who joined the BJP on a day and is declared a Chief Minister candidate on the third day, it creates internal bickering which generates either inactivity in the election process or in some cases anti-party activity. One of the main reasons for the debacle of the BJP appears to be the haste with which the leadership inducted outsiders and gave them candidature.
3. Over kill in the BJP campaign: Though the BJP had won all seven parliamentary seats just nine months ago, to defeat and demolish the AAP, all major central Government Cabinet Ministers, most of the BJP’s State Ministers and many thousands of party supporters from outside Delhi where rushed to campaign thus off putting the local BJP workers and leadership.The biggest weakness of the campaign was that the outside activists did not know the needs and the mindset of the Delhites who themselves resented approaches from such strangers.
Inexperience or inadequate knowledge of the needs and temperament of the Delhi voters have damaged the BJP beyond imagination.
4. Very negative campaign: Prime Minister Narendra Modi is a national hero and people look to him for certain quality leadership. They have put their trust in Mr Modi just a few months ago. Modi promised so much but the delivery takes time and he could not explain the mechanics of the new management adequately and convincingly to the voters.
On the contrary people must have felt his own speeches to be full of aggression, limitless accusations and allegations especially against the AAP and Arvind Kejriwal. Modi’s message was in effect a repeat of what he had been saying for the last 20 months or so. Voters were bored perhaps by such ineffective extravaganza.
5. Prime Minister Modi’s £9,700 suit made exclusively for him in the UK when he greeted President Obama was not only an anathema to the voters but also contrary to Modi’s oft repeated slogan of ‘Make in India’. Such a blunder was naturally ridiculed by BJP’s opponents and it has harmed the credibility of Mr Modi perhaps beyond his imagination.
The ongoing ridicule of Kejriwal or AAP whether his muffler, coughing or his dharna on the streets of Delhi during his short-lived Chief Ministership did not produce the right result for the BJP.
6. BJP attacks on the lack of experience or the alleged corruption in the fund raising by AAP was vigorously contested and counterattacked by Mr Kejriwal and his teammates highlighting the enormous expenditure both in the parliamentary elections and other state elections including the Delhi one by the BJP and so called examples of crony capitalism.
Compared to the BJP, AAP has won the peoples’ trust for honest, local focus and enormous hard work by mostly unpaid party workers and volunteers.
7. The support to the underdog syndrome. In any contest if one of the participants is repeatedly portrayed as the underdog and kicked below the belt the reaction of the common man is to support the underdog and such a unique and unbelievable result in Delhi speaks for itself.
8. The AAP focused on economic development and the living standards of the citizens of Delhi. Religion was completely out of their strategy. This has I believe impressed the evolving new India beyond recognition.
Delhi debacle - what next?
No one is unbeatable and no one is invincible. In India we have seen it happen several times. In 1977 Indira Gandhi and her party were kicked out by the anti Congress Alliance. Prime Minister Morarji Desai’s government was then slapped for taking some foolish actions, imprisoned Indira Gandhi and appointed several commissions of enquiry rather than giving the people of India an effective government. In 1979 the Janata Dal party and its allies were thrown out and Indira Gandhi became Prime Minister once again.
After her assassination Rajiv Gandhi (her son) became the Prime Minister and won a huge majority of nearly 480 in the Lok Sabha but once again, later Congress was defeated by VP Singh’s alliance.
In Delhi in 2013 the AAP won and then lost. In 2014 the BJP won all Parliamentary seats and have lost the Assembly elections but Mr Modi has a very challenging time ahead especially in the states where elections now are due over the next 8 months and more. He has also to handle the demand of the AAP for more powers to the Delhi State legislature. The space for central government manoeuvre is very restricted indeed because of the huge question of the powers of the legislature in Jammu and Kashmir state.
Modi vs Kejriwal contest has its own parameters. Mr Modi has public life experience of nearly 50 years and he has come from a very humble background. He is a single man, a loner with little baggage. Mr Kejriwal is a family man with deep desires but limited experience. The biggest challenge for Mr Kejriwal is such a thumping majority itself. Historically speaking in India such a big majority create divisions within one’s own party in a short space of time. Along with that challenge is the range of promises pledged by Mr Kejriwal and the AAP.
The supporters of the BJP and Congress all flocked to the AAP. How can you retain their trust and confidence. That is a big challenge for the AAP and Mr Kejriwal himself.
Let me now put it in a lighter sense, just for a change.
In India, Cricket, Bollywood and Politics (since April 2013) have become new gods. In some parts of India the stock market also (especially in Gujarat where you will hear even in a panwalla’s small shop customers discussing the ups and downs of the Bombay Stock Exchange) illustrate the variety of the Indian voters and their preferences. The Bombay Stock Exchange had a very drastic loss of some 491 points on Monday 9th February after the Delhi exit polls projections became known. The social media is humming in India and it has played a huge part in the Delhi elections.
In Cricket and Bollywood there comes some happy moments but some tragedies too. We have seen that in Politics also. India deserves a better development path, more than ever before. The performance of the AAP government in Delhi is going to be watched by everybody with tremendous expectations with some worries and fears too. We wish better days are there in the foreseeable future.
