Jostling for votes in India

Both, BJP and the Congress, are unable to support AAP as they do not know when Kejriwal will turn on them.

When the hurly burly is done, India will have a government at the centre, hopefully. But for the next month, politics will be at its worst, and sometimes even at its best, as leaders jostle for space in the new alignments to make their own presence felt amongst the constituents.

Strangely enough, while everyone knew that the elections were going to be declared for April –– this time stretching through nine phases into May –– none of the political parties seem to be in complete command. The full lists of candidates is yet to be announced, with even the so-called national parties like the BJP and the Congress groping for suitable people; new alignments are being set up and broken over seat adjustments with a great deal of fluidity visible insofar as political affiliations are concerned. And while Congress scion Rahul Gandhi and the BJP’s Narendra Modi did make a head start in their personal campaigns, their parties have still to catch up with the painstaking details of putting together the electoral infrastructure on the ground.

The wild card is the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) whose leader Arvind Kejriwal has become the first politician of any consequence to ‘invade’ Modi’s home turf, namely Gujarat, since 2002. He is currently touring the state, preparing a report card on the development –– or rather otherwise –– of Gujarat, given the fact that the media, the BJP and interestingly enough at one point, the Union Planning Commission, had given a gold star to Modi on this front. As one is writing this, televisions are broadcasting images of Kejriwal and his convoy standing outside Modi’s residence in Gujarat asking for an appointment so that they can ask him pointed questions. Needless to say, Modi did not give the appointment, but Kejriwal achieved his purpose of confronting the BJPs prime ministerial candidate on his own mantra of development.

The AAP –– that has got many of the feminist outfits attacking it for the emphasis on the aadmi and the sheer neglect of the aurat–– has introduced the dramatic element into these elections, with Kejriwal being an unguided missile, capable of going anywhere and confronting anyone. He is a highly intelligent and shrewd player, and while his style might offend the educated elite, it does strike a chord with in his target audience of the lower-middle class –– the poor and the marginalised. The party is like a big potpourri of all kinds of members, and hence all kinds of opinions. On the one hand, the party dissociates itself from senior advocate Prashant Bhushan’s remarks about a referendum in Kashmir on the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), but on the other, offers a Lok Sabha ticket to Irom Sharmila, who has been on a permanent fast against the AFSPA.

The AAP has become a thorn in the side of both, the BJP and the Congress, with either unable to support it as they do not know when Kejriwal will turn on them. The scenes in VIP Delhi of direct confrontation between BJP and AAP workers convinced the minorities, for instance, that the AAP means business, and that this fight against the BJP is not ‘manufactured’ as was rumoured, but real.

It is not clear how much of this will translate into votes for the AAP. It started campaigning too late and does not have the candidates and more importantly, the organisation that is required to mop up. It is expected to fare well in Delhi and Haryana, and in some urban cities like Chandigarh and Bangalore. But the aim of this party is to get at least 35-40 seats so that it emerges as the third largest in parliament, thereby putting it in a position to influence the composition of the next government.

The outcome is difficult to predict as the campaigns have just about begun and the Indian audience is currently just watching without allowing its critical faculties to take over. Decisions are made towards the end and it is only then that the media and the pollsters might be able to predict the outcome with a little more certainty.

The Indian voters in villages hold the key, and the campaigns, as they intensify, will see all the political parties trying to wrest this from them, only to be forgotten for the next five years.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 8^th, 2014.

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