A Walk Through Delhi: Who Are You Voting For?

NEW DELHI: Delhi is a happening city these days. A big carnival as auto rickshaws carrying tantalising posters, jeeps with loudspeakers zip by enticing voters with the virtues of their respective candidates. The radio waves are being commanded by the BJP, the internet by the Aam Aadmi Party, and despite valiant efforts Ajay Maken of the Congress is barely able to squeeze in.

Everyone now is discussing the elections. Who will you vote for elicits surprisingly frank answers. The neighbour who voted for the BJP last elections and is an ardent supporter of the party herself stops this writer to say, “you know I will be voting like everyone says for Kejriwal this time, but I am scared as I do not know if he can govern.” So why not Kiran Bedi? “They say she is worse,” is the response.

Three young salesgirls in a New Delhi district store are quick in their response. Who will you vote for? Kejriwal is the unanimous voice. And why? Well lets see he might do something better is one answer. He is definitely more interesting than any of the others, is a second reaction.

The woman sweeping the roads. So who are you going to vote for? Everyone in my colony says vote for jhadu, she says. So that is where I will be voting. And what about Prime Minister Narendra Modi? Usne kuch nahin kiya, he only talks is her cynical reply. Have you heard of Kiran Bedi? Who is she, the woman asks going back to her work.

A maid servant who lives in one of the resettlement colonies has more to say. “Kejriwal ko denge vote is baar”, she says. The same woman, like many others ten days ago, were saying, lets wait, people have not decided yet, they are looking at both. Now for her at least it is Aam Aadmi party. She knows her reasons: at least when he was in government he reduced the power tariff. Kuch to kiya usne, yeh BJP wale to bas baat karte hain.” (at least he did something, these BJP chaps only talk). And as a parting shot she turns back and says, “kiya acche din aa gaye ji? (have the good days come?)

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the man Kejriwal is fighting according to Delhi’s urban poor. Most of them have not even heard of Kiran Bedi. And those who are now talking of voting for Kejriwal are clear that “Modi ne to kuch nahin kiya” (Modi has done nothing). So the BJP might have convinced the media that the contest is between Kejriwal and Bedi but the ground still reads it as ‘Modi versus Kejriwal.”

Unlike the Lok Sabha elections, and even the last Assembly polls where the BJP was on the ascendant, this time it is clearly on the defensive. Its supporters are not their usual belligerent selves with the communal agenda clearly missing from the electioneering. There is no love jihad or ghar wapsi here as Delhi-ites, poor and rich have made it clear that for them development, jobs, prices, women’s security remain the main issues. And that there is zero tolerance for communal rhetoric, or bombast, with even Trilokpuri that had been overtaken by communal violence a short while ago limping back to an even handed approach between AAP and the BJP.

The auto rickshaw drivers are the most vocal AAP constituency. Whe asked who he will vote for a auto driver said, “BJP.” But why? Because thats how we will vote, he said. After a little chit chat through which he realised one was a journalist,he turned at a red light and said, “behenji, let me tell you the truth. We are all going to vote for Kejriwal.” Then why didn’t you say so at the beginning? He smiled, “these are bad times, why say what need not be said.”

The lawyers are the most vocal anti Kiran Bedi constituency. The Delhi Bar Association has become very active in trying to defeat her. Driving by one came across a bunch of lawyers burning Bedi’s effigy. “We will not let her win” they declared. But why? And they spoke as if in a chorus about her high handed attack on the lawyers years ago. The lawyers are sending out SMS’s against Bedi, holding protest meetings, in a bid to persuade people not to vote for her.

The BJP camp is angry. They do not like their candidate because she is “arrogant and high handed.” Her campaigner quit, and when one asked a BJP worker wearing a badge outside a small locality meeting about Bedi he showed no hesitation.”This was a wrong choice, a very wrong choice, none of us want to work for her,” he said. Two others standing by nodded, but one of them interrupted his young colleague to say, “but we are a disciplined party, she is our leaders choice, we will work for her.”

Most of the hoardings across the city in prime spots seem to have been taken over by PM Modi. AAP is not even trying to compete but its workers are on the roads the entire day, and most of the night. Students have enrolled as volunteers and even the left bastion Jawaharlal Nehru University seems to be moving the AAP way in these elections with the students repeatedly inviting AAP leaders to learn more about them and their programs. A recent meeting carried on till 2am in JNU, crowded and intense.

The BJP is sitting pretty in seven Lok Sabha seats. AAP has had to move up from the ‘zero’ it had reached after walking out of the government, and becoming the brunt of media and political attack for almost a year. Today, with just about five days for polling it is clear that the BJP has everything to lose, and AAP everything to gain. The one is becoming defensive under the other’s offensive.