What’s at Stake for the Three Leading Candidates as the Delhi Election Dates Approach

AAP

Born from the crucible of an anti-corruption movement, the AAP had taken Delhi by storm in 2013 in its first electoral outing, winning 28 of the 70 seats, with a vote share of 29.49%. It went on to pulverize its opponents two years later in 2015, when it won 67 seats (leaving only three for the BJP and none for the Congress) with a vote share of 54.34%, a feat it almost repeated in 2020. Although its tally marginally dipped to 62, the AAP maintained a vote share of 53.57% in the 2020 Assembly elections.

But the party, which once projected itself as an agent of change, is now at the receiving end of corruption charges. Kejriwal himself spent nearly six months in jail after his arrest first by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and later by the CBI for his role in the alleged Delhi excise policy scam. He got bail in September last year.

Kejriwal’s lieutenant and former Delhi Deputy CM Manish Sisodia too spent over 17 months behind bars in the excise policy case. Another former minister Satyender Jain and Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh too were arrested and are out on bail.

Dominating the political landscape of Delhi since 2015 and winning Punjab – its second state – in 2022, the AAP is the most successful political startup India has seen in the recent past with Kejriwal’s welfare model, including mohalla clinics, improvement in government schools, power and water subsidies, the party’s mainstay.

It was this “Delhi model” which helped the AAP capture the poor and lower middle class vote bank and take the wind out of the sails of the Congress, which once enjoyed considerable support of these sections. The BJP, which enjoys the support of the upper middle class and the Punjabi and trading community, has not suffered a similar erosion in its vote bank.

With the BJP focusing all its attention on attacking the AAP on the issue of corruption and targeting Kejriwal personally over the “lavish” renovation of the CM’s residence, the AAP, for the first time, is facing the heat on the corruption front. Kejriwal once projected himself as the “educated” outsider who had taken the political plunge to fix the broken system.

However, the AAP seems fairly confident that its populist/welfare politics (plus the narrative that the Centre through the L-G is blocking many schemes) will help it fend off the BJP’s onslaught.

When it comes to electioneering and ground connect too, the AAP has often proved that it is second to none. To oust the AAP from power, the BJP also has to bridge the yawning gap in their vote shares. In 2020, the BJP registered its best vote share (38.51%) in two decades, but it was still 15 percentage points behind the AAP. The difference in vote share between the two parties was over 22 percentage points in 2015.

With regard to the Opposition INDIA bloc, of which the AAP is a part, the election is crucial as the Kejriwal-led party is one of its only two constituents that is in power in more than one state. Kejriwal has good personal equations with Opposition leaders who do not enjoy a good rapport with the Congress, the de facto leader of the bloc. A third consecutive victory for the AAP in Delhi would enhance Kejriwal’s standing within the INDIA bloc and put the Congress under further pressure. An AAP loss would, on the contrary, be a breather for the Congress.

BJP

Barring Punjab, Delhi is the only state in North India where the BJP has not tasted power over the last two decades. But, a look at the BJP’s vote share over the last three decades shows that the party has managed to retain a considerable support base.

Despite being out of power in Delhi since 1998, the BJP has never fallen below a vote share of 32% in six Assembly elections since. In fact, even in 2015, when the AAP swept the elections and the BJP got only three seats, the party had managed a vote share of 32.19%. Five years later, when it won eight seats, with the AAP again winning the rest, the BJP’s vote share saw a jump to 38.51%.

What continues to give the BJP hope, apart from its consistent vote share, is that since 2014, it has won all the seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi.

Since losing power in 1998, the BJP has lost three consecutive polls – 1998, 2003 and 2008 – to the Congress and three – 2013, 2015 and 2020 – to the AAP. A major drawback for the party has been the absence of a popular face, compared to the Congress’s Sheila Dikshit and, since 2013, the AAP’s Kejriwal.

In 2015, the BJP played a major gamble projecting Kiran Bedi, the former IPS officer who was a key part of Anna Hazare’s anti-corruption movement, as the CM face but the move did not work. Despite the Modi wave sweeping the northern belt, Delhi remained out of reach for the BJP.

This time, the party is set to wage its most aggressive campaign ever in Delhi with Modi leading from the front. The party believes its vote share among the upper middle class, the trading and Punjabi communities is intact and it also has support among a considerable section of the Purvanchali voters. And it is now making concerted efforts to break into the lower middle class, Dalits and the poor.

In his first two campaign speeches, Modi pitted his government’s model directly against that of the AAP. His focus was on countering the key pillars of the AAP’s governance model, arguing that his government was running a more efficient welfare apparatus. Since the AAP first rose on the political horizon, it has underlined itself as a party of “the common man”, with its symbol of the “jhadoo” or broom signifying that. Modi and the BJP are directly appealing to slum dwellers enjoying benefits of free power and water under the AAP government, to autorickshaw drivers whom the APP assiduously wooed.

After the Lok Sabha setback, the BJP showed a commendable capacity to bounce back in Haryana and Maharashtra. It would want to extend its winning streak in Delhi to deliver a crippling blow to the Opposition.

Congress

The rise and fall of the Congress in Delhi is nothing less than dramatic. The party came to power in Delhi in 1998, months after it was trounced in the Lok Sabha elections. Even in Delhi, the BJP had won six of the seven seats. The lone Congress winner was Meira Kumar from the Karol Bagh seat. In fact, Dikshit who became the CM had lost to Lal Bihar Tiwari of the BJP in the East Delhi seat.

But in the Assembly elections held in November 1998, the Congress won 52 of the 70 seats with a vote share of 47.76% and Dikshit as the head of the Congress government went on to helm Delhi for 15 years. That rein ended in 2013, when the Congress was reduced to just eight seats, with Dikshit herself losing to Kejriwal.

In 2015, the party suffered a bigger blow as it failed to open its account and it saw its vote share plunge to under 10%, a steep fall from the 40.31% it got in 2008 and 24.55% in 2013.

In the last Assembly elections, the party was further relegated to the backburner, securing just 4.26% of the votes while 63 of its 66 candidates forfeiting deposits.

While Dikshit got a large pie of the credit for the party’s 15-year reign, the Congress also had a strong organisational structure in Delhi at the time, including leaders from almost all communities. It had many satraps, and many of them vied for the CM’s post.

Haroon Yusuf and Parvez Hashmi were the strong Muslim faces, Mahender Singh Sathi and Arvinder Singh Lovely connected the party with the Sikh community. Raj Kumar Chauhan and Chaudhary Prem Singh were the Dalit faces. A K Walia, Ajay Maken, Jagdish Tytler and Subhash Chopra were the Punjabi faces while Ram Babu Sharma was the quintessential Bania leader and Sajjan Kumar the Jat strongman. Then there were leaders like Yoganand Shastri and Mangal Ram Singhal. Mahabal Mishra was the party’s Purvanchali face.

The decline of the party in Delhi is in a sense the decline of these leaders. While Maken is still active, the Congress does not have a credible face in Delhi. Its organisation has crumbled and there is no vote bank either. Party leaders admit that even Muslims would prefer the AAP despite grievances as the community believes that only the Kejriwal-led party is in a position to take on the BJP.

The Congress is also facing a huge confusion as to who its opponent in Delhi is. While the AAP has announced candidates in all the 70 seats and declined an alliance with the Congress, the grand old party’s high command is said to be against targeting Kejriwal personally. A press conference announced by Maken recently to target Kejriwal as “deshdrohi (traitor)” was cancelled at the last minute, with sources in the Congress saying the leadership frowning upon this line of attack against the AAP supremo.