Delhi Assembly Elections: Clear Fight between BJP and AAP
December 11, 2014
The Aam Aadmi Party-Bharatiya Janata Party rivalry is assuming epic proportions in Delhi in the run up to the ensuing elections. So much so, that the Congress doesn’t seem to be in picture at all.
AAP’s tactic to Make it Kejriwal Vs Mukhi Contest
Consider the AAP pitch-forking BJP veteran Jagdish Mukhi into the battleground to deliberately make it look like an AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal versus Mukhi contest for the chief minister’s chair!
Banners on auto rickshaws, and roadside billboards have made it look like that way despite the BJP’s decision against projecting any CM face in the elections.
So, why should the AAP select a CM candidate for the BJP? That too, a person, who may not even qualify given Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s thrust on youth and the fact that Mukhi is already in his seventies.
Ostensibly the AAP wants to negate the Modi factor – which won it not just the Parliamentary election but also the Assembly elections that followed in Haryana and Maharashtra. It may also (naively?) hope that such a canard could make other CM aspirants in the Lotus brigade uncomfortable.
With the Congress out of the picture as of now since it not only lacks the confidence, but also faces a leadership crisis in Delhi that reflect on its late preparations for the ensuing elections, it is only natural for the AAP to target the BJP.
AAP was a roadblock for BJP’s in 2013 Assembly Elections in Delhi
The AAP brand of perceptibly ‘honest’ politics – that proved its USP – dented the BJP’s prospects of assuming power in Delhi despite having emerged as the single largest party in the state Assembly. It had fallen just three seats short of majority and could well have staked its claim under ‘normal’ circumstances through the well acceptable though highly dubious practice of ‘poaching’. But rewriting rules in 2013, AAP had led the high decibel electioneering over corruption in Delhi. With the Congress as the common enemy and a ‘cesspool of corruption’, the BJP – the self-proclaimed ‘party with the difference’ – could not be left behind in projecting its ‘holier than thou’ approach.
However, much has changed since Kejriwal quit the CM’s post in haste – his nemesis being the unconditional support by the Congress to his government. With the AAP leader in a Catch-22 situation, this was a rather tricky proposition and the writing was on the wall the day he assumed office as Delhi’s CM. Kejriwal’s discomfort was palpable. Although he sought course correction, it was already too late. He had lost the battle to the BJP which crushed its aspirations of emerging as a major political force in the 2014 General Elections.
AAP and BJP: Natural Rivals
Delhi is again the battleground for BJP and AAP which have much in common since both thrive on didacticism. Like Modi, Kejriwal too likes to be on the driver’s seat and control the proceedings and like his more illustrious and successful BJP rival, the AAP supremo too is highly ambitious.
Hence, instead of the Congress, the AAP finds the BJP as a more natural rival. It is in this context the attempts by the BJP to win over the AAP MLAs needs to be interpreted. At the same time, this explains why the AAP is more alert in dealing with the BJP than the Congress – Consider how it used spy cameras and secretly taped telephonic conversations to do its sting operations on the BJP leaders who it alleged were trying to poach its MLAs with offers of money and plum positions in a bid to form the government in Delhi.
This time the BJP is even trying to woo the Dalit vote bank that had gone to the AAP’s kitty in the last elections. The BJP does have an advantage after its clean sweep in the national capital in the last General Elections. Kejriwal still fights the sobriquet ‘bhagora’ (who shunned responsibilities and quit).
Yet Kejriwal has learnt his lessons quickly. Cleverly, he has drawn the BJP into the picture by comparing the 150-day rule of the Modi government at the Centre to his 49-day rule in the national capital. Consider the sample – ‘BJP ke 150 din, Paani ke bill dogune; AAP ke 49 din, Paani ke bill maaf’ (The water bill doubled in the 150 days of the BJP rule while it was made free by the AAP during its 49-day rule).
Obviously, the AAP is more prepared now after building its organisational network in the city state. But will the people of Delhi buy Kejriwal’s claims? Or will they side with Modi? In any case, Mukhi is just a façade!
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