Delhi polls: Arvind Kejriwal astutely turned it around

New Delhi: It was on a hot sultry afternoon sometime in mid-July last year that Aam Aadmi Party convenor Arvind Kejriwal, still recovering from the aftershock of the serious reverses that the party suffered in the Lok Sabha elections, discussed with his close confidantes the revival plans for the first time for the party if Delhi was to face another Assembly elections.

It was at this meeting that Mr Kejriwal laid out his vision, or the roadmap, that the party should follow in the run-up to the Assembly elections. And now the results prove that Mr Kejriwal’s strategy turned out to be a huge gamechanger.

The first thing that Mr Kejriwal strongly emphasised to all his top party colleagues was that the entire cadre should pan out across the capital over the next two months, visiting his locality to apologise that his government resigned after only 49 days in office. This, as a party insider now claims, transformed Mr Kejriwal’s image from that of a “bhagora to bechara” — something that the BJP failed to sense and launched an aggressive personalised campaign on the same issue against him in the run-up to the elections.

Even while the BJP was trying every trick in the trade to split the AAP to form a government in Delhi, what the saffron party did not realise that it was giving Mr Kejriwal the much-needed elbow room to regroup. And this proved to be a lethal mistake. With each passing day, Mr Kejriwal was astutely working on the roadmap to fast regain the lost ground in the national capital.

In fact, following the rounds of apology covering the city extensively, the AAP top boss started shortlisting his candidates in September itself, directing them to once again reach out to the people. This subsequently came to be known as the famous “Delhi Dialogue”. All this while the BJP was riding high on its electoral gains in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections and subsequent Assembly polls, having little idea of the formidable challenge that they were going to be pitted against.

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But Mr Kejriwal continued to work silently, putting his gameplan into action, which paid rich dividends, converting him from zero to hero. An integral part of this strategy was to ensure that the AAP flock of 28 MLAs remained intact as well.

Thus by the time the Election Commission announced the Delhi Assembly polls in mid-January and the BJP got down to work, Mr Kejriwal had already done his homework, and very well.

“When the BJP started preparing for the exams, the AAP had already completed the entire syllabus and was, in fact, revising it the second time round. The BJP grossly underestimated the fact that Mr Kejriwal is a quick learner,” a said an AAP insider.

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Significantly, having learnt his lessons while facing major defeat in the Lok Sabha elections, Mr Kejriwal put his foot down during the party meetings when his colleagues wanted the AAP to contest Assembly elections in states like Haryana, Maharashtra and even Jharkhand. According to party strategists, Mr Kejriwal was extremely focused on Delhi and refuse to divert the party’s resources anywhere else.

It was also a conscious decision by Mr Kejriwal himself not to carry out a negative campaign against Prime Minister Narendra Modi or the Centre and focus only on issues of Delhi and provide a roadmap dealing with problems of the capital.

On the contrary, the BJP did everything wrong that it possibly could starting from the negative campaign to paratrooping Kiran Bedi to personally targeting Mr Kejriwal.