THE MUFFLER VERSUS THE TEN LAKH SUIT: PART TWO

NEW DELHI: A day before counting, it is clear that Aam Aadmi party and Arvind Kejriwal are very much in the race. And this is not about whether he will form the government or not, this is about coming in from the shadows after surviving a media led political attack, relentless for the past year.

Kejriwal and his team understood the pulse of Delhi, far better than the Gujarat imported BJP president Amit Shah and Prime Minister Narendra Modi who in sidelining the local party leaders committed a major blunder. And to understand what AAP achieved it is necessary to assess where the BJP went wrong. In fact the BJP’s campaign was a series of blunders that can be roughly categorised as:

1. The inability to feel the pulse of Delhi, and treat it as a Gujarat by trying to browbeat not just the BJP Delhi unit but also the voters into submission. This does not work in a city that has acquired a dynamics of its own, and makes more educated and informed assessments than most.

2. The attempt to communalise the situation by stirring the hot waters in Trilokpuri and again through targeted attacks on the Christian community and their churches in and around Delhi. The effort of the BJP was to break the Balmiki-Muslim consolidation that had brought the AAP candidate to power in the last Assembly elections, and to consolidate the non-Muslim vote behind it. This effort to stoke communal fires did not work in Delhi with the people reluctant to be divided on caste and religious lines, when for the urban poor the sheer economics of livelihood is of pressing concern.

3. This in fact was the biggest mistake by the BJP, that kept trying to play the divisive communal card till the very end in Delhi without realising that the voters here have come from all over India to earn, and for them this is of prime importance. The so called fatwa by the Shahi Imam asking Muslims to vote for AAP was rejected by AAP and by the Muslims both. The BJP, however, rushed to organise press conferences around this but the effort fell flat, and could not be milked for further gain.

4. The decision to bring in former cop Kiran Bedi for the middle class vote without making a serious assessment of the pitfalls. One, this alienated the local BJP party that virtually went indoors and did not help in bringing out the voters. The RSS cadres that were brought in were unable to do the same as the language of communalism was not working for the Delhi-ites. And two, the alienation of the local party was not made up by enthusiasm from the middle class as PM Modi and Shah had hoped as Bedi ---being a brash police officer---has never really been a popular figure in the city. The lawyers en masse response in burning her effigy and mobilising voters against her is case in point.

Kejriwal and his team worked hard on the poor neglected sections of Delhi. The urban poor who are eclipsed by the rich and the richer in the national capital. As Professor Anand Kumar told this writer, “we did not have money but we had time, and we used that to our best advantage.” So the campaign for AAP had in one sense started a long time ago---in the resettlements colonies, in the shanties, in Delhi’s densely packed ghettos. Azad market, Shahpur Jat, Sangam Vihar all came together this time around for AAP in the hope that the promises would have more meaning than those made by the BJP during the Lok Sabha elections last year.

Kejriwal did not address caste or religion. He refused to move into that area, and focused only on economic issues. The fact that in 49 days he had reduced the power tariff worked greatly in his favour, with voters being targeted with issues and specific proposals. So to cut into the Jat consolidation behind the BJP that basically impacts ten Assembly constituencies, AAP went in with the demerits of the controversial Land Acquisition Bill. To what extent this has worked will be known only when the results are out, but it was a good effort by the party nonetheless. To counter the attempted polarisation on religious lines by the BJP in areas like Trilokpuri, AAP moved in with peace rallies and a campaign for communal harmony. Kejriwal started the campaign for women security long before the elections were announced, a clever move that cut into this vote bank as well.

The result was that the Delhi elections have been fought on class and not caste or religious lines. The people have voted for the party they felt could answer their economic aspirations and refused to be swayed by other considerations. As a Congress leader said it albeit with a wry smile, “its strange, if there is a factory the workers have voted AAP and the owner BJP.” There has been a consolidation of the urban poor behind AAP, with other sections joining in, but it remains to be seen whether this is sufficient---as it is being predicted to be---to bring Kejriwal to power.

The election despite the ‘red herring’ of Kiran Bedi is between PM Modi and Kejriwal. The Prime Minister remained the star campaigner for the BJP, addressing four big rallies in his usual carpet bombing tactics that, if one goes by the exit polls, do not seem to have worked this time. The people have cast their vote, with the choice between the muffler and the ten lakh suit.