The
results of Assembly Elections for Delhi are out and Aam Aadmi Party has won a
thumping majority. This was no ordinary election and there are many reasons for
that:
a. This election was a final chance for AAP to stay relevant in the political scenario of Delhi.
b. For BJP it was a matter of prestige as they have been out of power in Delhi for more that 15 years.
c. For Congress it was a chance to gain some of its lost glory and a way to get back into power equation along with a chance to play king maker.
However, after the results the picture that we see is that AAP has a total control over Delhi Assembly, BJP with just 3 seats is hardly be termed as opposition and Congress has been thrown out of Delhi for 5 years.
But in order to better understand the reasons for this kind of a result we have to look deeply into the preparation of these 3 parties for the elections.
1. AAP
After the fractured mandate in the last assembly elections and a government of just 49 days, AAP saw the worst phase in its short political history when it failed to win a single seat in Delhi during the Lok Sabha polls. However, the party since started working on a single agenda of getting back to power in Delhi, with a full majority.
Their campaign was water tight and well thought of. In their manifesto they ensured that every class of citizens is covered. They did not shy away from apologizing to the public for resigning from the power last time around which resulted in regaining the lost support of the masses.
A very important aspect of the AAP campaign was the positivity that it reflected. Even though the BJP and Congress took to personal attacks on their leaders, AAP campaign concentrated mostly on their promises to the public and pointing out the lack of seriousness of their rivals towards Delhi. The campaign was water tight and reflected the seriousness of their resolve to capture power in Delhi.
2. CONGRESS
Since their defeat in the last assembly elections followed by the crushing loss in the General Elections, Congress has not put a right step forward. After their defeat in the last assembly elections, congress replaced Ms. Sheila Dikshit with Mr. Arvinder Singh Lovely and as soon as the elections were announced Mr. Ajay Makan was made the campaign chief and the party’s chief ministerial candidate.
However, he seemed to have no connect with the grass root workers in Delhi Congress and the campaign was hardly visible. It was a given that Congress would not be able to win many seats in this elections as the public in general has lost faith in the grand old party, but because of disconnect between the local party leaders and the party high command and the change of leadership in Delhi at the last minute ensured that public did not take them seriously and hence the party ended without any seats in Delhi for the first time in history.
3. BJP
This is the party with maximum resources at its disposal, a leader with a huge appeal and a party president with an envious track record in all the elections he had overseen for the party. However, they had the most disastrous campaign in the build up to the elections.
BJP’s campaign for the Delhi Assembly elections can be broken into 3 parts:
a. First they decided to fight the elections under the leadership of Shri. Narendra Modi, following the examples of Maharashtra and Haryana.
b. Then the realized that they would need a face to counter the popularity of Mr. Arvind Kejriwal, they decided to bring in Ms. Kiran Bedi and declared her their chief ministerial candidate.
c. After the kiran Bedi card did not have the desired effect, BJP send an army of its MPs to ask 5 questions to AAP.
Even after all these strategies, BJP failed to connect to the people of Delhi and ended with just 3 seats in the Delhi Assembly, its lowest tally ever.
If we dissect the campaign of BJP’s campaign we will see the following short comings:
1. First and most important factor responsible for the defeat of BJP in Delhi was the lack of effective leadership. Not a single leader in Delhi BJP unit could be pitched as its CM face as none of the leaders have any connection with the public. Delhi BJP is not a single unit but a mix of many units each wanting their leader to be CM.
2. When they decided to fight under the leadership of Prime Minister Shri. Narendra Modi following the examples of Maharashtra and Haryana, they forgot that in those states the BJP units were united and even if there was a friction it was never made evident. The Maharashtra BJP unit was ready with a list of all the candidates as soon as it split from Shiv Sena, which indicates that they had already done the ground work and were ready with their strategy. Same was the case with Haryana.
3. After deciding to fight the election under the leadership of Prime Minister and taking a U-turn and bringing in Ms. Kiran Bedi as their CM candidate, lead to confusion and chaos in the ground level workers who owed their loyalty to their old BJP leaders and at the same time lead the public to think that BJP is unsure of Modi magic in Delhi and it is afraid of the image of Arvind Kejriwal.
4. Kiran Bedi being a non-politician and an inexperienced political speaker was unable to impress the public and due to her statements, the BJP supporters who were rejuvenated with her as CM candidate, due to her administrative experience, also drifted away.
5. Sending an army of party MPs to Delhi and asking Mr. Kejriwal 5 questions every day was another bad move that back fired. At the time when AAP and its leaders were talking about their plans for the development of Delhi, BJP by focusing its attention on ripping the image of AAP and its leader Mr. Arvind Kejriwal, gave out the signal that they did not have any plan for the development of Delhi.
6. By not coming out with a manifesto and then close to election date coming with a Vision Document which described the citizens of North Eastern States of India as immigrants, BJP sealed its fate.
7. Another aspect that lead to the confusion and chaos in the state unit was delay in declaring the candidates for the assembly seats when rival parties had already taken out the lists and the candidates were busy campaigning in their respective constituencies.
If we have a look at the above points, it becomes very difficult to believe that this election was also planned by the Modi-Amit Shah duo.
The public of Delhi was witness to Positive Campaigning of AAP, Confused Campaigning of BJP and Lack of Campaigning of Congress.
However, this result is in no way a judgment on the Modi government in center. A state election is fought on the local issues it does not reflect the work being done by government in the center.
We can now just hope that AAP government can live up to its promises made before polls and deliver positive governance to Delhi.
a. This election was a final chance for AAP to stay relevant in the political scenario of Delhi.
b. For BJP it was a matter of prestige as they have been out of power in Delhi for more that 15 years.
c. For Congress it was a chance to gain some of its lost glory and a way to get back into power equation along with a chance to play king maker.
However, after the results the picture that we see is that AAP has a total control over Delhi Assembly, BJP with just 3 seats is hardly be termed as opposition and Congress has been thrown out of Delhi for 5 years.
But in order to better understand the reasons for this kind of a result we have to look deeply into the preparation of these 3 parties for the elections.
1. AAP
After the fractured mandate in the last assembly elections and a government of just 49 days, AAP saw the worst phase in its short political history when it failed to win a single seat in Delhi during the Lok Sabha polls. However, the party since started working on a single agenda of getting back to power in Delhi, with a full majority.
Their campaign was water tight and well thought of. In their manifesto they ensured that every class of citizens is covered. They did not shy away from apologizing to the public for resigning from the power last time around which resulted in regaining the lost support of the masses.
A very important aspect of the AAP campaign was the positivity that it reflected. Even though the BJP and Congress took to personal attacks on their leaders, AAP campaign concentrated mostly on their promises to the public and pointing out the lack of seriousness of their rivals towards Delhi. The campaign was water tight and reflected the seriousness of their resolve to capture power in Delhi.
2. CONGRESS
Since their defeat in the last assembly elections followed by the crushing loss in the General Elections, Congress has not put a right step forward. After their defeat in the last assembly elections, congress replaced Ms. Sheila Dikshit with Mr. Arvinder Singh Lovely and as soon as the elections were announced Mr. Ajay Makan was made the campaign chief and the party’s chief ministerial candidate.
However, he seemed to have no connect with the grass root workers in Delhi Congress and the campaign was hardly visible. It was a given that Congress would not be able to win many seats in this elections as the public in general has lost faith in the grand old party, but because of disconnect between the local party leaders and the party high command and the change of leadership in Delhi at the last minute ensured that public did not take them seriously and hence the party ended without any seats in Delhi for the first time in history.
3. BJP
This is the party with maximum resources at its disposal, a leader with a huge appeal and a party president with an envious track record in all the elections he had overseen for the party. However, they had the most disastrous campaign in the build up to the elections.
BJP’s campaign for the Delhi Assembly elections can be broken into 3 parts:
a. First they decided to fight the elections under the leadership of Shri. Narendra Modi, following the examples of Maharashtra and Haryana.
b. Then the realized that they would need a face to counter the popularity of Mr. Arvind Kejriwal, they decided to bring in Ms. Kiran Bedi and declared her their chief ministerial candidate.
c. After the kiran Bedi card did not have the desired effect, BJP send an army of its MPs to ask 5 questions to AAP.
Even after all these strategies, BJP failed to connect to the people of Delhi and ended with just 3 seats in the Delhi Assembly, its lowest tally ever.
If we dissect the campaign of BJP’s campaign we will see the following short comings:
1. First and most important factor responsible for the defeat of BJP in Delhi was the lack of effective leadership. Not a single leader in Delhi BJP unit could be pitched as its CM face as none of the leaders have any connection with the public. Delhi BJP is not a single unit but a mix of many units each wanting their leader to be CM.
2. When they decided to fight under the leadership of Prime Minister Shri. Narendra Modi following the examples of Maharashtra and Haryana, they forgot that in those states the BJP units were united and even if there was a friction it was never made evident. The Maharashtra BJP unit was ready with a list of all the candidates as soon as it split from Shiv Sena, which indicates that they had already done the ground work and were ready with their strategy. Same was the case with Haryana.
3. After deciding to fight the election under the leadership of Prime Minister and taking a U-turn and bringing in Ms. Kiran Bedi as their CM candidate, lead to confusion and chaos in the ground level workers who owed their loyalty to their old BJP leaders and at the same time lead the public to think that BJP is unsure of Modi magic in Delhi and it is afraid of the image of Arvind Kejriwal.
4. Kiran Bedi being a non-politician and an inexperienced political speaker was unable to impress the public and due to her statements, the BJP supporters who were rejuvenated with her as CM candidate, due to her administrative experience, also drifted away.
5. Sending an army of party MPs to Delhi and asking Mr. Kejriwal 5 questions every day was another bad move that back fired. At the time when AAP and its leaders were talking about their plans for the development of Delhi, BJP by focusing its attention on ripping the image of AAP and its leader Mr. Arvind Kejriwal, gave out the signal that they did not have any plan for the development of Delhi.
6. By not coming out with a manifesto and then close to election date coming with a Vision Document which described the citizens of North Eastern States of India as immigrants, BJP sealed its fate.
7. Another aspect that lead to the confusion and chaos in the state unit was delay in declaring the candidates for the assembly seats when rival parties had already taken out the lists and the candidates were busy campaigning in their respective constituencies.
If we have a look at the above points, it becomes very difficult to believe that this election was also planned by the Modi-Amit Shah duo.
The public of Delhi was witness to Positive Campaigning of AAP, Confused Campaigning of BJP and Lack of Campaigning of Congress.
However, this result is in no way a judgment on the Modi government in center. A state election is fought on the local issues it does not reflect the work being done by government in the center.
We can now just hope that AAP government can live up to its promises made before polls and deliver positive governance to Delhi.
