AAP Rejected, Or BJP Elected?

What are the big ticket issues that emerge from the loss of power for the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) coming back to power after 27 years? Change in democracy is always welcome as it puts the necessary pressure on political parties to perform better. It is this latent competition among the parties, just �ꦡ�like the competition among brands in the market place that is indispensable in democracy.

The Delhi electorate was faced with an uncanny situation. The AAP was not allowed to work with constant interference from the Lieutenant Governor (LG). The interference was laced in procedural niceties. Water supply was interrupted, roads were in shambles, and mohalla clinics were not working as expected. The choice before the electorate was if they vote the AAP back to power, the logjam would continue and governance will continue to suffer. What could be a possible reason for the electorate to vote back the AAP for the third time? Could it be to take a strong position on the illegitimate interference from the LG? But what would that add up to, perhaps, nothing tangible. But it should also compel us to ask: why did the electorate not call out the BJP? How could they trust a party that did not allow work for Delhiites to be given the reignsꩵ? Does it mean public ethics don’t matter or that it was not worth taking that kind of a risk in voting back the AAP that was not particularly impressive? Does this also mean that the electorate, election after election, voting to reject rather than voting to elect?

Simultaneously, we need to therefore ask the searching question as to why did the electorate vote the BJP that was seen by many as deliberately blocking the work? Earlier in municipal elections in Delhi, the electorate voted for the AAP, since the BJP had not performed and had played this kind of a similar role of blocking and blaming. Did the electorate feel an alignment between the centre and the state was more beneficial rather than standing up for a party that was under performing? Is this a pragmatic calculation or does it reflect a systemic distrust where the electorate is not sufficiently involved and wishes to get over and get things done? Either ways, it will remain a puzzle whether the AAP was rejected or was the BJP elected or is it neither of it proactively? Is it an early symptom of withdrawal born from a sense of anomiꦺe where no party is making a decisive difference to the life of the common man on the street?

The second significant issue during the Delhi elections was the narrative around corruption. Is corruption a significant issue to tilt the balance? If so, why did it not matter in Maharashtra, or other states where not only the BJP invited those with charges of corruption but those charged mostly won handsomely. Yet again, is it again a question of a lack of clear choice? Does the electorate feel it’s a non-issue because there is no party that is clean? All parties need money to fight elections is the common sense understanding. It is not that the electorate is not sensitive about corruption, but even if they are,🔥 what is it they can do aꦐbout it?

Arvind Kejriwal did attempt to appeal to the electorate by resigning a few months before the election, in spite of charges not being proved and managing to get bail from the courts. Kejriwal levelled serious allegations of threat to his life during his prison days and not being offered insulin. He made the elections a referendum on his character, not his life. During the Lok Sabha polls, he said: “If you wish to not send me back to the prison, please vote for me.” But neither did it matter during the previous Lok Sabha elections where it was a whitewash, nor during the assembly polls. Resigning from his chief ministership eventually became a non-issue. It did not evoke the kind of sympathy that Kejriwal had expected. A few decades back a resignation from a chief minister would have been a heatedly debated🍌 issue. Is it that Narendra Modi’s larger-than-life image reduced all other political players to a miniature version that are not significant enough? The lack of emotions in this case is a counter-intuitive move by the electorate. They are often considered to be driven by emotions; here is a case of missing emotive response. Is this again a symptom of disenchantment or one of cold consent for political elites to be punished?

The third dominant narrative was around freebies. It is now fairly known that the middle classes voted against the AAP because it was giving all public amenities for free to the poor and cross-subsidising them. In the context of growing economic distress,𒆙 where the data is suggesting that the middle classes are spending less and saving more, it is understandable they would be anxious. But the BJP too offered a similar kind of sops, but preferred to call it welfare. It is revdi when the opposition does and welfare when the BJP does. This rather self-contradictory posturing does not seem to expose the BJP, but intriguingly, the poor and the rich read the statements in accordance with what is convenient to them. While they read what the opposition says with suspicion, is it power that is mediating the way people approach, instead of earlier suspicion of power? What matters is power. Is this pessimism or in fact a realisation of power as an irreducible reality we are in?

Finally, amidst this kind of a situation of anomie and lack of choice driving the choices, and pervasive sense of alienation, the mode of personalised campaign carried out by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) with small drawing room meetings and door-to-door campaigns come across as a relief and gave a human touch. Personalised campaigns can be reassuring and look responsive. The solace people seek in face-to-face interaction could also be the source of why the narrative shifted from the Hindu-Muslim binary. The previous assembly elections were fought around the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) and Shaheen Bagh, which the BJP lost badly. This time around, there was no recitation of Hanuman Chalisa! Muslims found a relief, but again little choice between the AAP—which kept silence and distance during the CAA protests—and the BJP representatives, who actively fomented the conflict. The narrative was dropped not as a choice, but the helplessness of the parties. Does this shift provide us a possibility of a counter-narrative in the future? Did people succeed in putting pressure on the parties to shift the debat🔥e tꦦo civic amenities? Is this the success we need to watch out for in days of colossal failure of the collective will?

The elections in Delhi are often seen as a prototype of elections everywhere as it seems to resonate and impact political views in many other states. This was one reason the BJP was keen to win it this time. If this is true, what does it♛ mean 💛for the Congress Party that was virtually missing from the imagination of the electorate? The Congress attacking the AAP for complaining against the LG was in bad taste, and comparing it with the BJP’s lament against Jawaharlal Nehru was cynical. It has consequences for the future of the INDIA alliance. It once again proves the BJP’s point that the INDIA bloc is merely an anti-Modi formation with no agenda of its own. The future of the INDIA bloc is clear: it can no longer be merely an electoral alliance, but needs to be something more than that. Will the loss in Delhi compel the INDIA bloc to figure out what that something is?

(Views expressed are personal)

Ajay Gudavarthy is with the centre for Political Studies Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi

(This appeared in the print as 'AAP Rejected, Or BJP Elected?')