Delhi Assembly elections: Performance vs polarisation

The battle for Delhi can best be said to be a fight for a memorable past, to improve present day reality and a promise for a better future. These are the recurring themes one gets to hear on the campaign trail as Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal seeks a repeat mandate showcasing the achievements of his five-year rule.

The BJP is desperate to oust Kejriwal, who five years ago had dealt the first body blow to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, fresh from his resounding mandate in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, by posting a landslide victory, bagging 67 of the 70 Assembly seats in the national capital.

The BJP’s desperation is reflected in the high-pitched and communally polarising campaign, led by Home Minister Amit Shah, to make a comeback in the capital, 22 years after it lost power there, first to Congress and then to AAP.

Congress, which ruled the capital for 15 years from 1998 to 2013 with the late Sheila Dikshit as chief minister, has been reduced to a sideshow – keen to have a say in the capital but still smarting under the humiliating defeat handed out by Kejriwal, who snared the grand old party’s support base lock, stock and barrel.

Senior leaders have bolted from the electoral fray and the Congress campaign is trying to woo voters with the promise to bring back the “golden era” of Sheila Dikshit, who is credited with transforming the national capital into a city of the 21st century.

With the slogan ‘Congress-wali Dilli’, the Congress campaign is centred around the legacy of Dikshit, who passed away last year. It is the same Congress that failed to win a single seat in the mid-term elections in 2015. Fifteen months earlier, in December 2013, Kejriwal, then a rookie politician, had defeated Dikshit with a massive margin, firmly capturing the imagination of the capital after leading an anti-corruption campaign.

From the maverick, hot-headed newbie politician who won the Delhi elections in 2013 and 2015 on a strong anti-establishment plank, Kejriwal has transformed himself into a mature, sensible and go-getter chief minister with his finger firmly on the pulse of the people.

Kejriwal’s AAP has also dropped the constantly confrontationist approach with the Centre and appears quietly confident of its performance over the past five years. AAP believes that it has a firm grip over its core support base, comprising the capital’s lower middle class and migrants and residents of unauthorised colonies – thanks to the initiatives of the Delhi government in lowering electricity and water bills, improving education and healthcare and free bus rides to women passengers across the capital.

AAP has also kept its election campaign strictly local, focussing on government schemes that have touched the common man and refusing to pick up the bait thrown by the BJP to engage in a debate on nationalism through issues such as the attack on the Jawaharlal Nehru University Campus, violence in Jamia Milia Islamia University, the Citizenship Amendment Act, etc.

With Delhi Police under the central government, Kejriwal is shielded from the criticism most chief ministers face on the maintenance of law and order. AAP is also ever ready to counter BJP’s criticism of its development model by drawing comparisons with facilities provided by the Delhi government in schools and hospitals with that in the BJP-controlled municipal corporations.

If AAP is seeking votes on development, BJP has approached voters with the “decisive” governance style of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The “decisive” actions of “complete integration” of Jammu and Kashmir with the rest of the country, surgical strikes and air strikes against terrorists in Pakistan and the Citizenship Amendment Act have been the mainstay of the BJP campaign.

The BJP has rolled out heavyweights in the national capital, with Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP President JP Nadda leading the campaign from the front. The BJP’s ‘all hands on deck’ approach is clear as its top leaders, including chief ministers and Union ministers, have hit the campaign trail, with Modi expected to join on Monday.

Senior leaders Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Devendra Fadnavis, Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani, Union ministers Rajnath Singh, Nitin Gadkari, Anurag Thakur have already addressed rallies and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath is also expected to join the campaign. Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar is set to share the stage with Shah at a rally, while the party has convinced ally Akali Dal to withdraw from the poll fray to prevent a division in Sikh votes.

But the Shaheen Bagh protests against the CAA have given the BJP real ammunition to ramp up the communal heat in the election campaign. Shah has made the Shaheen Bagh protests the main plank of the BJP campaign. He urged supporters to press the button on the electronic voting machine so hard that the “current is felt in Shaheen Bagh,” virtually terming the protesters “anti-national.”

Going a step further, Shah also tried to link Kejriwal to the protests, citing the presence of AAP leader Amanatullah Khan at Shaheen Bagh. Shah also declared at a rally that the BJP aims to create a Delhi “where Shaheen Bagh never happens.”

Almost on cue, BJP leaders Kapil Mishra, Anurag Thakur, Parvesh Sahib Singh stepped up the rhetoric over the Shaheen Bagh protests. Thakur, the Union Minister of State for Finance, went so far as to exhort supporters at a rally to “shoot the traitors.”

Two days later, a Hindutva-crazed shooter indeed went on a rampage at the Jamia Milia Islamia University near Shaheen Bagh, sending shockwaves through the capital and pitchforking the anti-CAA/NPR/NRC protests to the centre stage of the Delhi elections, a week before the campaign bells fall silent.

The protest at Shaheen Bagh, launched on December 15, has cut off direct access to South-east Delhi from suburban Noida, leading to traffic jams and prompting a section of fence-sitters on the CAA/NRC issue to oppose the protest. Shah has been chipping away at such groups and the strong nationalism pitch appears to sway a sizeable chunk of voters.

Both AAP and Congress have been cautious in joining issue with the BJP. Kejriwal tried to turn the tables on the BJP, accusing it of allowing the Shaheen Bagh protests to continue. He claimed that the Shaheen Bagh protests would end a day after Delhi casts its vote on February 8.

Congress leaders Shashi Tharoor, Salman Khurshid, Digvijay Singh, Mani Shankar Aiyar have visited Shaheen Bagh but have refrained from making shrill statements from there, perhaps aware that any controversy would end up benefiting the BJP.

Congress was hoping to win over the support of the minority community, which they believe was unhappy with AAP for not taking a clear stand on the Shaheen Bagh protests. However, another section in the Congress believes that the minorities tend to support the party capable of defeating the BJP, which in Delhi is the AAP.

Another dilemma facing the Congress is that it is acutely aware that a better performance by it would not lead to winning seats, but end up benefiting the BJP. But it also cannot give a walkover to AAP, which was responsible for it being politically wiped out of the national capital.

Moreover, Congress is yet to roll out its star campaigners Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, among others, even as top leaders of the BJP and AAP swarm the national capital in hoardes. A raging internal feud between Delhi Congress president Subhash Chopra and the party’s campaign committee chief Kirti Azad, an import from the BJP, has added to the Congress’ woes.

Congress campaign managers said that their door-to-door campaign was in full swing and senior leaders, including the Gandhis, would hit the streets in the last week before elections. Plans are afoot to organise rallies of Sonia Gandhi and roadshows by Rahul and Priyanka.

While the Congress eyes a comeback in the national capital and the BJP, too, hopes for a win, AAP is fighting hard to prove that it is not a one-time wonder.

After the 2013 victory, AAP had displayed its impatience by moving into expansionist mode by venturing into new and untested territories such as Punjab, Goa, Maharashtra and even throwing a challenge at Modi in the Lok Sabha elections in Varanasi.

It made a mark in Punjab, only to fizzle out over the years, and came a cropper against Modi as BJP managed to sweep Delhi in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls and repeated the same performance in 2019. AAP also failed to dislodge the BJP from the municipal corporations.

While the 2013 and 2015 Delhi Assembly polls were won on the back of a successful anti-corruption agitation, with other prominent leaders such as Prashant Bhushan, Yogendra Yadav and Ashutosh still in the party, the 2020 election is seen as Kejriwal’s election.

February 11, the day of the results, will decide whether AAP emerges as a strong regional party to join the league of Trinamool Congress, YSRCP, DMK and TRS or was just a flash in the pan.