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NEW DELHI: The state for the next Assembly election is getting set in Delhi. The fight here will be almost a straight contest between the Bharatiya Janata party and the Aam Aadmi party, with the former currently having the upper edge.
The Congress party will be contesting of course, but will not be a factor in these elections. It has failed to revive in Delhi and has no local leadership to boast of. Former chief minister Sheila Dixit, after her brief stint as Kerala Governor, is leading a retired life and the party in Delhi state remains divided into ever increasing factions. In other words, from being in power not so long ago it is almost invisible in the capital of India.
AAP on the other hand is extremely active, with its presence on the ground increasing by the day. As Professor Anand Kumar told The Citizen, “we do not have money but we have time, and we are making full use of that.” As a result of this understanding AAP is far ahead of all other parties, including the BJP, in its campaign.
The strategy is three fold with dimensions being thought out and added as the campaign proceeds. The first is to not just project Arvind Kejriwal as the chief minister ---and thereby show up the BJP and the Congress for their inability to settle on one leader---but to do this in an almost iconic manner. Kejriwal thus was, and remains the centrepiece of the AAP campaign with posters and slots on FM radio carrying his voice and his personal messages to the voters respectively.
In fact a poster campaign by AAP has the BJP fuming. Autorickshaws drover across the city carrying a large poster with Kejriwal on one side and BJPs rather lacklustre Jagdish Mukhi on the other, asking in Hindi who the people would prefer as the Chief Minister? A clever poster that attracted considerable attention in the capital, as it was so noticeable in all parts of the state, and had the BJP and Mukhi protesting loudly.
ON FM radio AAP has launched a blitz of sorts with Kejriwal as the star campaigner. His voice reminds people of the achievements of his short lived government in conversational style, as he asks for a second chance to fulfil all the promises.
The second part of the strategy on the ground is to address the professionals and the intellectuals through the Delhi Dialogues. This interaction is used to get a feedback as well as to inform the people of AAP’s “specific” proposals for women’s safety for instance, livelihood and employment, education and capacity building, health and other such issues. AAP has decided that it will not keep within generalities insofar all these issues of import are concerned but come forth with specific doable measures.
For instance, Kejriwal says that one of his government’s first action will be to place a button through all mobile services so that a woman in distress can immediately alert the police station. And that he will deployed 20,000 specially trained guards for women’s security on public transport. Similarly, the party claims to have identified the need for at least 20 more colleges, and 500 schools in Delhi and promises to establish these if in power.
And three AAP seems to have realised---that it had not in the first stint---the need to specially address women, youth and minorities and has set up committees till the ward level. These are in place and the party leaders are optimistic that these will have an impact on the targeted groups as well.
The party has announced 80 per cent of the candidates and hopes to complete the process soon so that every candidate gets sufficient time to campaign in his or her constituency. Here there is visible heartburn as some corporators from other political parties who have joined AAP have been given tickets. Old AAP members are not particularly happy about this, but even so are keeping the dissent within party limits only. Significantly the carping within seems to have subsided although given AAP’s record it is too early to say whether it will remain down.
The Congress is still sleeping so there is little activity there. The BJP has now started countering the AAP campaign on the radio by playing on Kejriwal’s short stint, and reminding the people that although they entrusted their vote to him he had “run away.” However, the AAP counter with Kejriwal apologising, and reminding the people that despite the short stint he had brought down the power and water tariff seems to be cutting some ice with the electorate worst hit by Delhi’s spiralling prices.
The BJP has yet to finalise a chief ministerial candidate. And so far is determined to renew the “Modi magic” and field the Prime Minister as the star campaigner. It is aware that the announcement of any one candidate could deepen fissures within the state unit of the party, and thereby do more harm than good at this stage.
Delhi is warming up to the elections despite the freezing temperatures, with the AAP right now ahead in the campaign although not in the media spotlights. Television channels that are turned deaf by their own cacophony, are usually the last to assess the real mood on the ground and the nuances of political campaigns. And yet the first to make predictions.
