Exactly a year ago, to the date, state elections were notified in Delhi pitting contrasting electoral machineries of the Congress, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Aam Aadmi Party against each other. The first two used standard electoral practices, while the new kid on the block stirred the imagination of the people by an innovative campaign in which its election symbol acted like a metaphor. Much has changed in the Indian capital since then. For starters, last year there was a government at the Centre that was clearly on its last legs. Its morbidity was also affecting the state government. In contrast, the Centre is now still in its first flush of victory and is led by a party which picked up two other states with a clear majority in one and a significant electoral stride in another.
Last November, the BJP was still playing according to old campaign rules and entered the hustings with a clear chief ministerial candidate in Harsh Vardhan though he was out of sorts in the high-decibel contest. He was nominated at the behest of Narendra Modi, by then his party’s prime ministerial candidate, in place of the widely anticipated Vijay Goel. A year later, the BJP has the gumption to declare that it is entering the fray without a chief ministerial face. This underscores the BJP’s “Modi-fication” in this period.
The party’s confidence to alter the rules of the game and not enter the fray with a “face” stems from the success the party met in Maharashtra and Haryana and the continuing popularity ofMr Modi. The party is sticking to this strategy in Delhi and before that in Jharkhand. There was a time when the BJP campaign revolved around the triumvirate of Atal Behari Vajpayee, Lal Krishna Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi. But now there is only one vote-catcher, demonstrating that though BJP may not have yet realised the dream of “one-India”, the era of “one-leader” has been ushered in. The moot question is whether Mr Modi can deliver Delhi to his party?
Though AAP did not emerge as the largest party in the state Assembly, there was no doubt that — to use a famous Advani expression — the victor came second. AAP and Arvind Kejriwal were outsiders who bamboozled their way through elite zones of comfort erected over successive decades by the Congress and the BJP. In a situation where people were looking for a change, AAP symbolised hope and Mr Kejriwal became its face. The BJP, in contrast, another claimant to being the usherer of change, was caught in a moment of indecision. The Modi-centric campaign that was witnessed during the Lok Sabha polls had not yet taken shape and Mr Vardhan did not have the necessary charisma to lead a campaign from the front. The BJP is not afflicted by that vacillation any longer and this should enable a sharper focus to its campaign.
According to data-crunching exercise undertaken by Delhi-based Datanet India, AAP won 28 seats and emerged runner-up in 20 constituencies, while the BJP’s tally stood at 31 and its candidates were in second position in 29 other seats. Significantly, the Congress won just 8 seats, was runner up in another 14, while its candidates were a distant third in 41 seats. Importantly, AAP won 26 urban constituencies in comparison to the BJP’s 24 and the Congress’ 8 seats. The BJP swept seats in the periphery of the national capital region — those that adjoin Haryana and Uttar Pradesh — to add to the tally it wrested from the urban core of the capital.
There has been considerable erosion in the middle-class base of AAP since its suicidal decision to resign from government. Though it’s tough to gauge the electoral impact of AAP’s refusal to act responsibly, it appears unlikely that Delhi would go against the national tide and root for Mr Kejriwal when the rest of India is attending Mr Modi’s party.
Elections in Delhi are almost three months away and the time is sufficient for the BJP to devise ways to add significantly to 33 per cent votes it received last time and convert the swing into gains in terms of seats. For AAP, the challenge is to re-gain lost ground among the middle-classes and reassure voters about its sincerity. Mr Kejriwal will have to convince voters that his party is not neo-nihilistic in essence and that it is committed to running systems. The BJP’s decision to delay holding elections suggests its lack of confidence in facing the electorate in the capital and hints at a keen contest at least during early campaign.
The Congress which ruled the state from 1998 till last year is frozen in a time zone and has shown no signs of devising a new strategy except resurrecting the political careers of Jagdish Tytler and Sajjan Kumar by giving them an opportunity to campaign for party candidates. Though the Congress won just 8 seats last year, it polled almost 25 per cent votes. Changes that Congress initiated do not factor Delhi’s altered demography and political sensitivity. Its choice of Arvinder Singh Lovely, son of a former H.K.L. Bhagat acolyte, is indicative of the party’s penchant for old-style politics.
Voters in Delhi, like in most other parts of India, want an undefined “newness” and promise of a utopian order which the BJP and AAP promise as a result of which a Congress recovery appears unli-kely. Last year, Mr Modi was unsettled by the victory of AAP but he overcame the challenge due to Mr Kejriwal’s harakiri. The spectre of a repeat performance by AAP is a fear that the BJP cannot completely overcome. But for Mr Kejriwal to become a permanent hurdle in Mr Modi’s path, AAP will have to overcome the negative impact of self goals it scored in the past year. That’s a tall order.
The writer is the author of Narendra Modi: The Man, the Times
