How Modi crushed Kejriwal and left Opposition in shambles

medium nocaption118067972As the provinces go, the National Capital Region of Delhi punches way above its weight by exuding authority and seizing the commanding heights of power from a privileged perch. Even Maharashtra, India’s financial nucleus, is often at the mercy of the Delhi Sultanate for critical policy directions and tweaks. The Maharashtra legislature has 288 seats while the Delhi Assembly has 218 less at 70 seats. Yet Delhi is a political trophy for the Congress and the BJP who could not stomach two serial victories for a newbie, the Aam Aadmi Party that beamed different messages to different demographic entities in an increasingly multi ethnic city. The BJP ran the election on the back of its only political mascot, Prime Minister Narendra Modi against the AAP’s best advertised and known public face, Arvind Kejriwal,the former chief minister who lost the election along with his political aides, the outgoing CM Atishi and Manish Sisodia. This despite the BJP’s failure to identify and nurture a local leader from an army of “karyakartas” in two decades. medium118069464Not that it could bet insouciantly on Modi to draw the votes. Modi had failed to deliver Delhi in 2015, just months after he became the PM. Kejriwal, a former bureaucrat, exuded an appeal that transcended demography so much so that even the traders and entrepreneurs, who saw nothing but the BJP even in its worst days, rooted for him after he declared himself as a “Baniya” like them. He is a quintessential politician to the core, outwardly proclaiming to be above caste, class and religion, but not averse to using the stock in trade political devices like Hindutva and caste.However, the BJP’s decision to deploy its sole mascot against Kejriwal underscored the high stakes it placed on the Delhi polls, signalling that it would not underestimate him — especially after AAP’s victory in the Punjab elections.Kejriwal, on the other hand, was convinced of a third win. He dismissed the Congress as a relic of the Independence era and believed India’s future lay with political startups like his. He forgot that the Modi of 2015, still unsure of his steps, has by now brought the BJP to power in a majority of the states without projecting regional leaders, and his strategies, however questionable, succeeded.What the BJP got rightFrom a party with a sectional appeal for the traders, the Delhi trends indicate that the BJP attracted the votes of the less well-off, hit hard by inflation. The Congress’ campaign to show Modi as godfather to crony capitalists fell flat yet again. Moreover, the BJP has a cornucopia of leaders in Delhi, spanning the caste arc from Brahmins and Baniyas to Jats and Dalits. Yet like in the recent Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh elections, the party overlooked their potential to lead the Union Territory and instead used their caste antecedents to ensnare different demography.The Brahmins had Manoj Tiwari, the Jats had Pravesh Verma and Kailash Gahlot (an AAP import) and so on. It was as though each community could hope to have its man in the top job. medium118067669In the vortex of caste arithmetic, the BJP focused on the less well-off inhabiting the jhuggi jhopri clusters and regarded them as rich vote banks. Its workers fanned out into the slums for the past few months with a single point agenda of attacking Kejriwal and holding him up to his unkept promises. It used the money he allegedly spent as the CM on refurbishing his official bungalow which was called “Sheesh Mahal” (castle of mirrors) to heighten the sense of illusions and delusions about Kejriwal who accumulated his political capital on combating corruption.Kejriwal had up until now effectively portrayed himself as incorruptible. Modi dented the image.The AAP chief vainly tried to usurp the BJP’s trademark Hindutva plank by spinning his own narrative on the Ram temple and publicly conducting “havans” and offering pujas. An opposition party can successfully reclaim its rival’s agenda only from a position of credibility. 118067718The BJP, which had lambasted every party including the AAP, for wooing voters with endless sops, unabashedly adopted the strategy in Delhi, trying to outdo Kejriwal measure for measure. The strategy worked in tandem with a high decibel campaign that busted Kejriwal’s claims on welfare programmes. The AAP was hollowed out from within and outside midway through the polls when it was apparent that the BJP had gained a decisive edge.What it means for a once-united Opposition Small as the party is, the AAP’s spectacular rout can only spell disaster for the Opposition which had loosely banded itself as the INDIA bloc. In the side show of avenge–revenge politics played out by the Congress and AAP against one another, oblivious of the fact that the BJP would have the last laugh, the Congress’s Delhi bosses almost served Rahul Gandhi an ultimatum: snap all ties with Kejriwal or face a revolt. The princeling surrendered to Ajay Maken and Devendra Yadav, ending up with a zero in his third electoral contest since 2024 general elections. !function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll("iframe");for(var t in a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r=0;r The only solace the Congress can derive is that the AAP is out for now. Revenge, cry its insiders, for damaging the Congress in Punjab and Goa. It also looks like the Congress’s relations with the regional entities will be over. The AAP managed to get the support of other INDIA bloc parties like the Samajwadi Party and the TMC in Delhi, not that this was consequential.For now the BJP can sit pretty because barring Jharkhand and J&K, it has won every state election held after the Lok Sabha polls. Its opponents have their tasks cut out, disunity being just one of their problems.