It has been almost a year that the capital state of India last saw an elected government. Delhi witnessed an unprecedented change in the socio-political atmosphere since the India Against Corruption (IAC) movement in early 2011. A higher number of students were seen on the streets raising their voice for the anti-corruption bill than gossiping inside McDonalds and cafés.
Today the political awareness among the people of Delhi is higher than that of rest of India. In the last one year, Delhi is going to face its third major election. The political battle is even more interesting with the presence of a new player in the form of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in electoral politics.
Arvind Kejriwal (an ex-IITian, Joint Commissioner of Income Tax department, social activist and winner of the prestigious Raman Magsaysay award)-led AAP was born as a product of the anti-corruption movement, popularly known as Janlokpal movement. For the last two years, AAP is pitching for a different political game altogether.
This party, which has still not crossed its adolescence, has already brought several changes in the political scenario. In 2013, BJP was forced to replace the incumbent Delhi BJP president, Vijay Goel by Harsh Vardhan, under tremendous pressure and allegations from AAP against Goel.
Harsh Vardhan had a cleaner image among the Delhi BJP leaders and was well known for his role as the ex-health minister of Delhi in the polio immunization campaign.
In the 2013 assembly election, AAP emerged as the second largest political party of Delhi by bagging 28 out of 70 seats. BJP, even after becoming the single largest party, declined to form the government for not having a clear majority.
In a country where the post-poll scenarios are mucked with ‘cash-for-vote’ and horse-trading scams, this call from BJP was clearly unprecedented. Although with that AAP claimed yet another moral victory, it was trapped in a catch-22 situation on being invited by the Lt Governor of Delhi to form a government. After initial denial, AAP eventually formed the government in Delhi following a week-long referendum among the people.
BJP and Congress challenged AAP to implement its pre-poll promises which most of the people thought is not plausible. In the very first month, several important steps were taken such as, subsidizing electricity and providing free water to the people of Delhi. Audits were initiated on the power companies. In the 49-day stint of AAP government there was a sharp drop in the corruption level in Delhi, which was evident from the surveys of leading national dailies like the Times of India.
The new government also gave a massive blow to the crony capitalists and politicians by initiating investigations against Ambani (the richest Indian featuring on the Forbes list), for irregularities in gas pricing and power sector and Sheila Dikshit (ex-CM of Delhi) for her alleged role in the Commonwealth Game scam.
The crony capitalists of India are perceptually corrupt and are known to support the few hundred billion rupees worth election campaign of the major political parties including BJP and Congress.
AAP has repeatedly demanded all the political parties to come under the Right to Information (RTI) act, which will ensure transparency in election funding. But, so far, all the major political players have declined to come under the purview of RTI.
In February 2014, AAP tabled the anti-corruption bill for the state of Delhi which was jointly blocked by Congress and BJP on the floor of assembly. In the absence of a clear majority, the bill was not even debated and following that, Arvind Kejriwal and his cabinet of ministers resigned from the government. The cabinet advised to dissolve the government and appealed for a fresh election in conjunct with the general election. But the Congress-led UPA government decided to impose President’s rule in Delhi.
AAP’s ideologues then decided to take their battle to the national level and fight the general election across the length and breadth of the nation. Although AAP managed to get 10 million votes, it ended up with just 4 seats. Putting that into context, BJP in its maiden run got only 2 seats in the early 80s. The 2014 general election was not an ordinary election. There was an overall anger among the people of the country against the Congress-led UPA, after the country went through years of high inflation rate and several large-scale scams. Many significant political players including BSP and SP got decimated in front of the much propagated election campaign of BJP.
In the subsequent assembly polls, AAP decided not to fight elections in Maharashtra, Haryana, Jharkhand and Jammu & Kashmir; instead to focus and consolidate its strength in Delhi. In the meantime, AAP was locked in a legal battle at the Supreme Court (SC) to hold immediate election in the state. Both the previous UPA government and the incumbent BJP led NDA government were in no mood to face immediate election even after the Modi wave swept the country. SC ordered the central government to take immediate action regarding this and ultimately the Delhi assembly was dissolved in November 2014.
With time AAP has evolved considerably. They have clearly understood that common people of Delhi not only need corruption-free transparent governance, but also they want to see clear agenda for developmental measures. On that line, AAP launched its Delhi Dialogue program. This laid a clear blueprint of AAP’s vision towards making Delhi a world-class city. It discusses various pertaining aspects of Delhi including women security, opening new government schools and colleges, interest-free education loans for the students, infrastructure development of hospitals, free medicines, free Wi-Fi across the length and breadth of Delhi.
Since November 2014, opinions polls on national media have shown a longitudinal growth in the popularity of Kejriwal as a Chief Ministerial candidate of Delhi and neck-to-neck fight between AAP and BJP. AAP gained a considerable ground in Delhi since the general election. According to surveys, Kejriwal commanded more popularity than the rest of the leaders put together.
Delhi BJP, on the other hand, lacked a credible face. In the absence of a credible leader, the Delhi BJP unit appeared more fragmented than ever before. However, BJP always maintained that they would fight the election under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Three weeks before the election, AAP launched an all-out attack on BJP’s Delhi president, Satish Upadhyay, who was declared as the campaign head of the state, on having a conflict of interest.
AAP’s alleged that Upadhyay was the owner of at least two different companies who got contract for installing electric metres in Delhi. BJP insiders allegedly passed on evidences regarding this to AAP. Since long, Delhiites have complained of receiving bizarre electric bills disproportionate to the amount of usage. So this became a key issue, which further tarnished the image of Delhi BJP.
To counter this, one day after AAP’s press conference, Kiran Bedi, an ex-IPS officer and colleague of Kejriwal during the anti-corruption movement, joined BJP.
Political pundits saw this as their last strategy to check the exponential growth of Kejriwal’s popularity. In the past Bedi was known to be a critic of Modi and questioned his role in the Gujarat massacre. She even urged voters to not vote for BJP and Congress since neither of these two parties have agreed on making their election funding transparent.
Many political analysts questioned Bedi’s sudden change in stand. In fact, this was seen as a win-win situation for both BJP and Bedi - the former having no credible face to lead Delhi BJP and the latter took this opportunity as a shortcut to CM’s chair. A couple of days ago, BJP announced her name officially as the Chief Ministerial candidate. This is a clear deviation of BJP’s original stand of not formally announcing a CM candidate. BJP did not declare CM candidates for the rest of the states, but for Delhi they had to play the political game differently.
Social scientist and now AAP leader, Prof Yogendra Yadav said many times in the past that AAP’s long-term vision is to change the course of Indian politics by giving an alternative form of it. In that course of change, there will be few wins and many losses.
The great empire of Rome was not built in a day, so it's foolish to think that a corruption free developed India could be built overnight. But this rethinking of political strategies of major political forces, including BJP, is a clear indication towards that change.
Even after the mammoth mandate in the general election, BJP seems to have hit roadblocks in Delhi. BJP president Amit Shah’s statement in a recent election rally in Delhi sums up the concern within the party fold thus: “We have to find another way to fight the AAP, as it fights like an NGO. Therefore, we need to fight it in unconventional ways.”
Today, AAP is forcing other political parties to project clean candidates, to address the issue of corruption in public meetings and more importantly to find a leader who would match the charisma of Kejriwal. Clearly, in Delhi, AAP is setting the terms for the other political parties to catch up.
As one the senior journalists in India, Rajdeep Sardesai recently wrote in an opinion piece, “Three ‘M’s - Modi, money and yes, the media - are all lining up behind BJP. I don't know what that says about the state of Delhi voter, but it sure says a lot about the state of the media.”
Sardesai also wrote that a particular channel authority has advised the editorial team to stop live coverage of AAP rallies and inviting any spokesperson on live debates. In today’s age of moral bankruptcy in Indian media, the game is even more difficult for AAP. The party has to find ways to stay relevant and play the media game cleverly.
Today, young people discuss politics at cafés. Indian students from all across the globe donate time, money and energy to build up a new India. Young professionals take sabbatical and campaign for the party. On the day Kejriwal gave his last speech in Delhi assembly, thousands of youth were seen glued to the television screens outside tea joints, electronic showrooms, railway stations; the kind of passion only seen in India-Pakistan cricket matches.
AAP has changed the meaning of politics from a common ‘slang’ to a way to serve the nation. Only time will tell how long this unconventional form of politics will sustain in the Indian context, where typically the number of seats won and not the ethics or transparency in the electoral process defines success and failure.
I was reading one of Kejriwal’s recent tweets on how a beggar at one of the traffic intersections took out Rs 5 and donated to the party fund. The other day, an 8-year-old girl donated all she had in her piggy bank. For a party, which is based on crowd funding, these small gestures show how well AAP has captured the pulse of aam aadmis and aurats. There lies the victory of AAP where the electoral outcome becomes meaningless!