In 2015 Delhi assembly elections, Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party won an unprecedented 67 out of 70 seats with 54% vote share. BJP with a stagnant vote share of 33% managed to win just three seats. Congress party failed to win a single seat as it successfully transferred a large chunk of its votes to Aam Aadmi Party – Congress’ vote share had been reduced from 24.6% in 2013 assembly elections to 9.7% in 2015.
But just Two years later, in 2017 MCD polls, Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party could manage just 49 out of 272 seats. AAP’s vote share had been reduced by more than a half – the party now commanded support of just 26% of Delhiites. BJP with a vote share of 37% won 181 seats. Congress was at third spot with 21% vote share and 31 seats.
This massive loss of support in just two years made Kejriwal lose his cool. He launched below-the-belt attacks on Prime Minister Modi, called him coward, psychopath, and what not. For every promise that he hadn’t fulfilled, he had just one excuse – Modi ji kaam nahin karne de rahe ji.
But he knew that he couldn’t fool people with that excuse for too long.
Kejriwal knew that he had won Delhi assembly only because Congress had transferred its vote share to defeat Modi who appeared invincible after BJP’s victories in Haryana, Maharashtra and Jharkhand. But once that objective was achieved, Congress started to work on regaining its lost territory and as a result, AAP’s vote share in MCD polls came down to where it was in 2013 assembly polls. This drew Kejriwal close to reality – that BJP was on a upswing, and the only way AAP could come back to power was, by forming an alliance with Congress party.
So post MCD polls, he started wooing Congress. And then when 2019 Lok Sabha polls were announced, he proposed to Sonia Gandhi. And he did it publicly. Kejriwal pleaded with Congress to join hands with AAP and fight the seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi as a coalition. But Congress refused the offer because in a city-state that they ruled for 15 years, they were not ready to play second fiddle to AAP any more. Congress went to the Lok Sabha polls all alone – the idea was to claim the No. 2 spot in Delhi’s politics so that in the ensuing assembly polls, they could project themselves as the Claimant to Delhi’s throne. And they succeeded. Congress came second in five of the seven Lok Sabha seats with a vote share of 22.5%.
Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party managed to come second in just two of the seven seats. It lost deposit in three seats as the party candidate failed to secure even one-sixth of the total votes polled. The vote share of Aam Aadmi Party had further reduced to 18% {8% less than the 26% it had received in the MCD polls held two years ago}.
BJP, with 56.58% vote share {10% more than the 46.40% it had received in 2014 Lok Sabha and 19% more than what it had received in 2017 MCD polls}, captured all the seven seats in Delhi. The results indicated that even if AAP and Congress had joined hands and fought BJP as a coalition, they would still have lost all seven seats. Congress and AAP together polled mere 40.5% votes to BJP’s 56.58%
Another salient point in 2019 Lok Sabha polls was that BJP not only won all the parliamentary seats in Delhi but it also led in 65 out of 70 assembly segments. And the party that led in the remaining five assembly segments was Congress, not AAP. Let it be emphasized that AAP didn’t lead in even one of the 70 assembly segments.
This shows the steep decline in Aam Aadmi Party’s fortunes in Delhi’s politics. It took Delhiites just four years to figure out that Kejriwal is all sound and no fury.
Kejriwal’s excuse that his govt couldn’t deliver because Delhi doesn’t have the status of a full state like Haryana and Punjab had failed to convince voters (AAP had fought Lok Sabha polls on the plank of full statehood). So now he has changed his strategy. He fell back on his tried and tested strategy of enticing voters with freebies. In October, he announced free travel for women in DTC buses. And in August, made consumption of 200 units of electricity free to trap middle-class voters.
The rest of his initiatives – better schools, better performance of students, mohalla clinics – are all propaganda intended to attract those voters from affluent classes who don’t want or need anything from the government for themselves but feel good when something is done for the poor. A couple of schools have been renovated and decorated and videos of those schools are circulated over social media to make people believe that Kejriwal has transformed government schools.This is far from the truth. It’s the same story for Mohalla Clinics. 90% of mohalla clinics are defunct. When I ask my friends or acquaintances, who applaud Kejriwal for Mohalla Clinics, whether they had ever got themselves treated at one such clinic, the answer is a big NO.
This shows that propaganda works. Nobody sends their children to these “transformed government schools,” but the talk of the town is that Kejriwal has done wonders for school education system. Nobody ever felt like visiting a Mohalla Clinic when they fell ill, but the talk of the town is that the Mohalla Clinic model is being discussed globally.
I feel that the propaganda notwithstanding, Kejriwal will perform miserably in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls. I’m astonished to hear that some “surveys” indicate that AAP is again going to make a clean sweep of Delhi. It is nothing but an attempt by the anti-BJP media who want consolidation of anti-BJP votes in favour of AAP. With these fabricated surveys, they want to tell anti-BJP voters of Delhi that look, the only person who can defeat BJP in these polls is Arvind Kejriwal, so don’t waste your vote by voting for Congress.
Now whether this strategy is going to work is yet to be seen. But my question to these surveyors is simple – What has changed in the last six months that AAP’s vote share would jump from 18% to 50%? If Mohalla Clinics and transformation of government schools are Kejriwal’s big achievements, why didn’t they work in his favour in 2019 Lok Sabha polls held just eight months ago? Do they think that Delhi voters are so dumb that they would forget that Kejriwal who now says that “humne paanch saalon mein bahut kaam kiya hai” is the same person who not long ago used to say “Modiji humein kaam nahin karne de rahe ji.”
While I believe that the two freebies given by Kejriwal on the eve of elections – free bus ride for women and free power consumption up to 200 units – would draw many erstwhile AAP voters back to the Kejriwal camp, it would still not be enough to win Delhi for him. Congress is not ceding space to AAP in these elections. It knows that 2020 is not theirs but it wants to make sure that Kejriwal is pushed out of Delhi politics forever, so that in future, the fight remains confined between BJP and Congress.
If we go by the data, it is quite likely that BJP would form government in Delhi next month. BJP’s strategy of making Manoj Tiwari the president of Delhi BJP has worked – a large number of Poorvanchali voters who voted for AAP in 2015 are voting for BJP now. Moreover, unlike 2015, I see no participation of college-going youth in campaign of Aam Aadmi Party today. Many suave middle class voters who voted for AAP in 2015 are disillusioned with it now. Arvind Kejriwal’s support to the Tukde-Tukde Gang of JNU has certainly worked against him. And last but not the least, Kejriwal’s support to illegal Bangladeshi immigants living in Delhi, and his opposition to CAA-NRC are going to be the proverbial “the last nail in AAP’s coffin.
With the non-BJP votes split between Congress and AAP, and prime minister Narendra Modi’s popularity at an all time high, BJP may very well emerge victorious in Delhi.
(The writer is a keen observer of Indian politics. Being a JNU alumnus, he has been writing political commentaries for twenty years.)
