The AAP landslide

Yes, you will all get the freebies

The results for Delhi elections are trickling in for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and pouring in for the Aam Admi Party (AAP). The early trends suggest a land slide for AAP. Prima facie, it looks like a case of socialist promises of freebies and a negative campaign run by the BJP, winning over everything else. The imminent defeat of the BJP is strikingly similar to the rout faced by the Indian National Congress (INC) in recent Lok Sabha elections. The INC for long thought handouts will win them votes and allies. It miserably failed to gauge the change in public opinion and demography. An aspirational middle class with a demographic bulge was in no mood to fall for utopia. The BJP campaign was carefully planned around the aspirations of an emerging India and the voters rewarded it (though the cart load of scams perpetrated by the INC and its allies contributed to its loss). Just nine months down the line, the BJP seems to have misjudged the voters. It has done an INC.

The huge vote share (more than 50% according to early counting trends), will obviously make the AAP supporters euphoric. They ran a relentless campaign and ensured a massive shift in traditional vote banks. The expectations form the new government are hazy at best. The previous stint of 49 days was a disaster and left Delhi without a government for almost a year. One can only hope that this time around with a decisive mandate, the AAP will deliver some of its promises. Unlike last elections they have refrained from giving deadlines for their promises. This is sensible, especially when realpolitik is a different animal than street politics. The only fear Indian Affairs has is, Arvind Kejriwal turning into a Mamata Banerjee, who still has to come to terms of being a Chief Minister and not a street protestor anymore. Hopefully Kejriwal has learnt his lesson from the 49 days in power.

What was touted as a close contest by the BJP is turning out to be the most disastrous result for them. Kiran bedi, the Chief Ministerial candidate trailing (and probably losing to AAP) talks volumes about the way the party carried out its campaign. Hubris is all one can blame it on. There would be many rounds of postmortem in the BJP war room, blames would be assigned and scapegoats sacrificed. What the party really needs is realigning.  For a start it should avoid doing an “India shining” all over again. The first National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government carried out large scale reforms, fruits of which were reaped by the succeeding United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government.

If the NDA wants to keep its voters in good humour, it should have a two prong strategy. Carry on with the reforms, which will bear fruit in the long run and identify quick-wins at the same time. A nuclear deal or make in India will take their own time, meandering through bureaucracy and the federal structure. The results may not be visible in the next two or three years. The benefits of which, might take even longer to reach the bottom of the pyramid (the most critical section of voters). On the other hand schemes like Jan-Dhan Yojna can be leveraged relatively quickly to show impact on the masses. Though the reform agenda and the social media blitz the government has embarked upon bodes well with the middle class, it has little or no relevance to the masses.

To capture the imagination of the masses, NDA should not get into a populist binge mode. The right approach will be to balance the big ticket reforms with quick-wins. Access to quality education, formal banking, utilities (Water, energy, sanitation) and infrastructure will immediately benefit people even in the remotest of corners. Ensuring teacher attendance, direct cash transfers, holding utility operators accountable and fast tracking infrastructure projects can show results in a short period of time.

The roumours have it that the BJP is struggling with internal dissent. The Modi, Amit shah combine has sure rattled a lot of feathers in the party. Containing the dissent from the sundry sadhus and sadhvis to veterans in the party will not be easy. The rules of the game cannot be changed overnight. Will the NDA learn its lesson from the humiliation in Delhi is yet to be seen. More interesting will be to see how the AAP keeps its socialist promises and how it finds the money despite lowering tax rates.

The runaway chief minister

Arvind Kejriwal, Delhi’s Chief Minister of 49 days resigned a few hours ago. He blamed the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the supporters, Congress for his resignation. Earlier today he tried to table an anti corruption bill (Jan Lokpal bill), which the Lt. Governor of Delhi has ruled as unconstitutional saying the bill requires approval from the union government. In his defense Kejriwal had sighted previous bills passed without the approval of the union government by the earlier Congress government. The constitutionality of the bill is for the experts to decide. But what Kejriwal did today can be termed as an act of running away from his responsibilities.

I won't play anymore 

He conducted an SMS referendum before accepting the outside support from Congress. However, today there was no such referendum before his resignation. 30% people who voted for Kejriwal during the assembly elections last December have been betrayed. The promises Kejriwal’s Aam Admi Party (AAP) made were hardly fulfilled, apart from a big handout in form of state subsidy for water charges. The most important and long lasting promises like improving the education and health facilities were not even delivered.

What Kejriwal did deliver was a lot of theatrics. Mid night raids on African nationals in name of drugs and prostitution, sit in protests in the heart of the city, sleeping on the pavement overnight, filing high profile police complaints on sub judice matters and making some vague corruption claims. In his 49 days of Chief Ministership he never talked about a long term solution to any of the problems he highlighted during his protest days. His most talked about point, corruption hinged completely on introduction of the Jan Lokpal bill. From our experience we know that bills alone cannot bring corruption down, especially the one that affects the common man. The solution is to remove personnel interference in the processes and automate/digitize them. When there are will be no people involved in the process there won’t be any one asking for a bribe. But Kejriwal chose the high decibel, attention seeking tactics instead of doing actual work.

The reason given by Kejriwal for his resignation today will raise many questions in the coming days. The most obvious one will be, “why didn't he take the legal course to justify the constitutionality of the bill and push it through, even if it took more time”? This is an important question because he has now lost the chance the people of Delhi gave him. He did not use it to deliver his promise but blew it away in indulging in funny theatrics. Even if he returns to power in the next elections with an absolute majority, the constitutionality of the bill will still hold as it does today. Whom shall he blame then?

During the hay days of AAP, just before the elections last year, only 30% of the people in Delhi voted for AAP, this in other words 70% of Delhi rejected AAP. The interesting thing is that AAP got a lot of votes from the fence sitters, people who could not choose between the traditional parties BJP and Congress. It also got a lot of vote from the young voters, many of them first timers. This section is most vulnerable to defection since they see that their party of choice made a lot of noise but did little work in the past 49 days. Delhi is most likely to go to polls once again along with the Lok Sabha polls in April – May. It won’t come as a surprise if AAP actually sees a fall in its vote share.