View: ‘Kaam bolta hai’ is the basic message from Delhi elections

‘Kaam bolta hai’ (work speaks) is the basic message of the Delhi assembly elections, enabling the 7-year-old Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) to sweep for a second term, getting the better of BJP’s hyper-nationalism and well-oiled poll machinery.

People did not just recognise the work AAP has done to address bijli, paani, education and healthcare, but also rewarded it with their votes. That is the significant shift. It will send its own message to politicians who believe that when the chips are down, everyone tends to be swayed not so much by programmes as much as by considerations of caste, religion and emotive issues like who’s a nationalist and who’s an anti-nationalist. Other parties may well emulate AAP’s module for governance.

BJP tried to polarise the electorate on Hindu-Muslim, India-Pakistan, national-anti national lines placing anti-Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) protests in the middle as a bogey. It worked only to a point, and this may be reflected in the party’s increased vote share this time, up from 33% in the 2015 state elections (but down from 56.5% it had got in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, when was polarisation was sought around the Balakot attacks). But it did not reach the critical mass of votes required to be converted into seats.

BJP’s campaign was, even by its own standards, unnaturally divisive and abusive, sinking to lows that amounted to sanctioning vigilantism. This seems to have become counterproductive after a point, and BJP may well have done better but for this shrill blast that made many Delhiwallas, even many Narendra Modi admirers, uncomfortable.

Not unexpectedly, Congress was completely squeezed out. A strong showing by it, even in a few constituencies, could have damaged AAP.

Another significant takeaway has been the narrative put out by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. He kept the focus on ‘basic issues’, but also signalled that his party was certainly not anti-Hindu or Muslim-appeasing. BJP tried to trip him by talking about AAP’s support for Shaheen Bagh, going to the extent of dubbing him a ‘terrorist’. It failed in this ‘character assassination’ mission.

Kejriwal’s recitation of Hanuman Chalisa on a TV channel, his visit to a Hanuman mandir, the ‘Jai Bajrangbali’ slogans raised by AAP volunteers near booths on polling day, not to mention the ruling party’s proposal to include the subject of ‘<real> patriotism’ as part of school curricula pretty much short-circuited any BJP attempt to paint AAP as a bunch of Left-liberals or members of any ‘tukde tukde’ gang.

AAP was geared to take a leaf out of BJP’s book, without taking recourse to turning on the toxic tap. This was <not> ‘soft Hindutva’, but a bijli-paani governance narrative in an idiom and optics Delhi’s multicultural electorate could well identify with.

Kejriwal knew only too well that his constituency overlapped with that of BJP’s. Many Delhites quite openly remarked that while they would vote for Modi in a national election, they wanted Kejriwal in Delhi. This is another narrative other opposition parties may look at in the coming days.

BJP appeared to have woken up in mid-January when it realised that it may lose its core vote to Kejriwal. It pulled out all stops. But, ironically, by making Delhi such a high prestige election — it pressed into service 200 MPs, 70 Union ministers, with Home Minister Amit Shah leading the charge — the BJP gave a larger-than-life profile to Delhi, which would have otherwise be seen as only a ‘half-state’ election.

What should worry BJP’s brass is the growing loss of power in states that are increasingly turning to other parties, states in which voters are now being able to see viable alternatives. In just over a year, it has lost out in six states — Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Maharasthra, Jharkhand and now Delhi.

While Modi still retains his popularity at the national level, he is no longer able to make up for the shortcomings of BJP’s state leaders or its state units as he was able to do in the early part of his prime ministership. As a third time chief minister — and winning with aplomb despite many odds, Kejriwal is now likely to be accepted with open arms at the high table of opposition leaders. He is expected to try and increase his footsteps outside Delhi.

He won’t be in any hurry, though, as he wouldn’t want to repeat the mistakes he made in the past — such as ‘going national’ in 2014, or attacking Modi stridently.

In Punjab, AAP had taken roots, but lost the election in 2017, because credible faces left it, and BJP transferred its votes at the last minute to Congress. Kejriwal may well encourage the entry of known and established political faces from other parties to build his organisation, be it in Punjab, or in states like Haryana, Goa and Gujarat. In Delhi, some Congress leaders may well look at greener pastures and turn to AAP — or BJP.

Arvind Kejriwal is now a three-election wonder. And that will make him be taken dead seriously.