Analysing the BJP’s defeat in Delhi

Voters swung towards BJP last time, not due to its ideology but because it promised development, economic betterment

It is, indeed, instructive to analyse why the ruling Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) was decimated at the polls in Delhi. But the more important point to know is how the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has emerged with a bang: 67 seats in a house of 70! The BJP is down to just three seats from the 32 it had won in the December 2013 assembly election. What is the AAP all about? It is a secular, left-of-centre party, which may provide an alternative option in the country, replacing the Congress which is languishing. Some time ago, a set of motivated people from different fields joined the Gandhian, Anna Hazare, in his campaign for the appointment of Lokpal (ombudsman) in order to fight corruption at high places. The movement engulfed the whole of India in no time because the campaign had permeated all segments of society. How the Indian government beguiled Hazare and his associates to circumvent its undertaking to appoint an ombudsman is another story. Yet, there is no doubt that his movement attracted many idealists at the time. And Arvind Kejriwal was one of them.

He was among the many who aspired for a clean and transparent polity. Although the movement was suppressed, it never allowed idealism to go out of the public gaze. That was when the AAP was born and it refocused its attention on the issue at hand. The party contested the election and was briefly in power. But how and why the AAP got more attention this time was because the people were sick and tired of the two main political parties, the Congress and the BJP. The AAP, despite facing the apathy of the public, stuck to its path and managed to catch the imagination of the people once again and was voted to power with an unprecedented majority.

Much will now depend on Kejriwal and his associates and how they pursue the ideals they have adumbrated. The Delhi electorate has pinned its hope in the AAP because the people believe the party can deliver. The two main political parties do not evoke optimism and both the Congress and the BJP look like relics of the past. People are looking for an alternative and the Delhi election has thrown open one such opportunity. It is, however, too early to think that the politics of values, which goaded the people to participate in the freedom movement, can return.

Whether or not the AAP leaders realise this, they have become the centre of attention as well as hope. They can become an option at the centre in the next Lok Sabha elections in 2019. But it will be a different journey and, to traverse it, the AAP will have to remain focused on values, which constitute the basic structure of the Indian Constitution.

True, the Delhi election was not a referendum on Prime Minister Narendra Modi. But it was the BJP that had made it into a referendum of sorts on Modi by putting his pictures on every bit of publicity material it released. The many crores of rupees of advertisements that the party released in newspapers and on hoardings displayed in Delhi had Modi’s pictures along with Kiran Bedi’s, who was seeking election. It would be too simplistic to believe that Bedi’s induction as the chief ministerial candidate was the cause of the BJP’s defeat. The vote was against the BJP and its ideology of Hindutva. The party still does not want to face the fact that the spell of Modi has waned. The BJP looks jaded and stuck in the old mould of religious superiority. The voters swung towards the party last time, not because of its ideology but because it promised development and the economic betterment of the Indian people. Almost 10 months of the Modi government at the centre has made little difference to the life of an ordinary man on the street.

Both the BJP and the Congress, which did not win a single seat in the Delhi election, must introspect hard and change their policies. If the BJP were to analyse the causes of its defeat, it would realise that the Hindutva ideology does not sell in a society which is pluralistic. The attacks on churches is suspected to be the handiwork of extremists within the party. Campaigns like ghar wapsi or the projection of Nathuram Godse — Mahatma Gandhi’s assassin — in a positive light do not go down well in a country that takes pride in being secular.

The Congress, stuck in dynastic politics, has little hope for revival. The party was a movement and had its qualities. Today, it is distant from the people. The belated efforts of Rahul Gandhi to address rallies or give speeches are too little, too late. He should cultivate the media but he hates to hold press conferences or give interviews.

The rout of both the Congress and the BJP should make them go back to the drawing boards. If they do that honestly, they would realise that they are distant from the ground realities. Even if they do not move towards the left, they have to find a solution to poverty and unemployment. Modi’s free enterprise has not given any dividends so far. There is no running away from the reality that one-third of the Indian people are living below the poverty line.

The RSS, the BJP’s ideologue, takes pride in saying that the rule of Hindus has returned after many decades in India. This is not a solution but the problem. All segments of society should be associated with India’s development. One, however, feels that the minorities are being left out purposely. India, as Mahatma Gandhi said, is like a bouquet of flowers. He was emphasising the plurality of Indian society. The Indian Constitution assures equality to all before the law, whether they are Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs or Christians. But it is a pity that India is drifting away from that principle. The sooner Indians return to that basic requirement, the less arduous would their journey be towards a democratic, secular and socialist polity.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 19^th,  2015.

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