This past week, the Aam Aadmi Party came back into the media spotlight after a period of relative quiet. Arvind Kejriwal undertook an inspection tour of Gujarat and came up with a bizarre assessment that showed agricultural productivity was falling, the economy was stagnant, joblessness and despair were running high and a poor populace, deprived of electricity, food and fair governance was seething with anger. When a district official stopped Mr Kejriwal’s cavalcade — in keeping with the Election Commission rules, as the model code of conduct had come into effect — the AAP went hysterical and organised a siege of Bharatiya Janata Party offices in Delhi, Lucknow and elsewhere.
The rest is well known. What is the net electoral impact of this? As a corollary, it may be asked which party’s votes is Mr Kejriwal targeting or threatening? It is a fair assessment that those who saw the violence unleashed by the AAP workers and its shouting brigade on the streets of Delhi would have reacted in two ways. Mainstream, middle India folks would have responded with horror and disgust, convinced the AAP was a rabblerousing force, a destructive rather than constructive political entity, and best avoided on voting day. For them, the choice would have appeared compelling: it’s Narendra Modi — or the mob.
Yet, it is not as if the condemnation of the AAP has been — or can be expected to be — universal. There is an element of India’s intellectual discourse, and a body of Left-leaning intellectuals that is quick to rationalise street violence and confer political legitimacy to anarchy. Intersecting with this sentiment is a visceral opposition to Mr Modi and absolute fear as to the regime change — as opposed to mere change in government — that he may bring.
The upshot of this is the AAP’s street-fighter opposition to the BJP and its ability to make loud and dramatic claims about his governance — even with manufactured facts and made-up figures — is cheered by those who are despondent at the Congress’ infirmity and emergent collapse. They are desperate for a seemingly muscular figure who can take on Mr Modi. In turn, this has implications for the Congress and could further alienate it from its natural or at least tactical supporters.
It is to be noted that Mr Kejriwal is concentrating his efforts in states and regions/cities where the contest is essentially between the Congress and the BJP/National Democratic Alliance. He is not taking on regional parties, even in individual states where they have been accused of corruption and misgovernance. His constituency — which includes the media — is a national one and it serves him to train his guns on the national parties, and on Mr Modi. In this he is repeating his Delhi formula, but with some variations.
The upper middle class support he got in Delhi before the December 2013 Assembly election was a temporary phenomenon. That cohort, in Delhi and elsewhere, has migrated to the BJP. Watching the AAP stormtroopers in action on their television screens last week, they would have been pushed even further into the Modi camp. However, Mr Kejriwal calculates sections of the urban poor, the minorities, the permanently aggrieved and the Left-leaning activists/NGO classes are available to the most visible anti-Modi party.
These groups have been orphaned by the defeatism that has gripped the Congress. To be fair, some of these sections are also angry with the Congress for its performance in office and are seeking an alternative, though not necessarily an alternative in Mr Modi. This is where Mr Kejriwal is going to get his incremental votes (or perhaps all his votes).
Congress politicians seem to realise this. Speaking privately a few days ago, a senior Congress member from Punjab admitted that the AAP was taking away anti-Akali Dal votes and exploiting the anger against the local government that the Congress itself was in no position to do.
In Haryana, there are fears that if the AAP cuts into the Congress vote, the BJP and its ally, the Haryana Janhit Congress, could benefit disproportionately in the first-past-the-post system. Bangalore (South) offers a piquant example. This is a BJP stronghold but the incumbent MP, H.N. Ananth Kumar, is not the most popular man. He is being challenged by Nandan Nilekani, whose appeal and credibility is possibly higher than that of his party, the Congress. This has the makings of an interesting contest. Has the entry of the AAP made things more perplexing — or less? Feedback from the Congress and the BJP says the AAP factor is certainly present. “It appears the AAP is cutting into both the BJP’s votes and Congress’ votes,” a senior politician said. “In the process, it may just negate its own presence.” Should that happen, the BJP will probably win, as the anti-incumbent or anti-BJP vote, which would in the normal course have gone to the Congress candidate, would be wasted on the AAP instead.
In their wisdom, some commentators are going on and on about this being a popularity contest between Mr Modi and Mr Kejriwal. While a personality clash of this nature — between two different men, both outsiders in their own way — would make for fascinating drama, it is somewhat imaginary. It is becoming increasingly obvious that the BJP and the AAP are not competing for the same vote and the same constituency. The party that is being crushed in the middle, and losing out in the battle, is the Congress.
This past week, amid the stand-off and the polarisation between those who backed Mr Modi’s record and those who saw hope in Mr Kejriwal’s antics, did anyone notice Rahul Gandhi make more of his trademark maudlin speeches in Maharashtra? The poor man has simply fallen off the map. This irrelevance is putting the fear of god into the Congress, and individual party MPs are beginning to express it fairly openly.
In sum, the Congress’ gamble that shoring up the AAP government in Delhi would help it and would create a hurdle and a new rival for the BJP across urban and middle-class India may have backfired. The AAP has certainly grown — but where is the evidence that it is hurting the BJP?
