Delhi polls: BJP goes for the kill; AAP buoyant and Congress edgy

With just 70 members, the Delhi Assembly, for which the Election Commission announced the poll schedule on Tuesday (January 7), may be a relatively small one. Yet, the stakes for the three parties vying for the levers of power couldn’t be any higher when Delhi votes on February 5. The poll results will be announced on February 8.

Hamstrung by palpable anti-incumbency, serious taints of corruption and a gradual chipping away of the powers of its government that adversely impacted governance, the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) faces its toughest electoral contest ever since it formed its first minority government in Delhi in 2013 but followed it up with two massive consecutive victories in 2015 and 2020.

Huge task for BJP

The reasons for the AAP’s discomfort are also the ones that give hope to the BJP of breaking its 26-year-long exile from power in Delhi. That the saffron party couldn’t win the Delhi Assembly polls even when its mascot, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, was at the peak of his popularity after the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha landslide victories that included a clean sweep on Delhi’s seven parliamentary seats, only goes to show how daunting its electoral challenge is.

Also Read: Delhi polls: No CM face, but BJP banks on RSS power to steer it through

As for the Congress party, which ruled over the national capital for 15 straight years between 1998 and 2013 before being dismantled as much by the AAP as its own follies and being reduced to a caricature, the electorate felt unworthy of giving even a lone seat in the Assembly for the past two elections, the upcoming polls are a struggle for survival and revival.

Civility goes for a toss

With so much at stake for each of the three contenders, the civility of electoral discourse has, expectedly, been the first casualty; preceding even the announcement of the poll schedule by the Election Commission.

The BJP and its supreme leader, past masters in peddling both fake and vituperative narratives, have made it known that their Delhi campaign would be a continuation of the toxicity they normalised in earlier polls.

What Bidhuri's candidacy shows  

If the Prime Minister took the lead by branding the elected government an ‘aapda’ (disaster) – admittedly a mild pejorative compared to the many attacks Modi has hurled at his rivals in the past, his party, through the candidature of former MP Ramesh Bidhuri from the Kalkaji seat, made it clear that the use of uncouth language, especially directed at opponents, was not just acceptable to it but was also worthy of a reward.

Bidhuri, who had hurled vile abuses at fellow MP Danish Ali on the floor of the Lok Sabha last year and was supposedly ‘punished’ by the party when he was denied a ticket to contest parliamentary polls this year, is now the party’s choice to challenge chief minister Atishi in the Kalkaji seat. In a matter of three days, Bidhuri has gone from promising to make the constituency’s roads “like Priyanka Gandhi’s cheeks” to attacking Atishi for changing her surname from Marlena (which she had stopped using in 2019) to Singh and asking the CM if she had “changed her father”.

BJP stands behind Bidhuri

Bidhuri’s repulsive comments have already stirred up howls of protest from both AAP and Congress, but the BJP has, so far, indicated no plan to replace him as the candidate from Kalkaji. While announcing the poll schedule, the Chief Election Commissioner warned “all parties and candidates” of “harsh action” if they used offensive language to criticise anyone, especially women. However, since Bidhuri’s comments were made before the Model Code of Conduct came into force, the former MP will not be answerable for his conduct, thus far, to the poll panel.

Also Read: Modi govt banishing 'illegal Bangladeshis' with an eye on Delhi polls

Whether it is this crassness, Modi’s or Bidhuri’s that continues to define the BJP’s campaign for Delhi or if the saffron party would eventually shift to an issue-based narrative, riding on the perceived corruption and failures of the AAP regime and the largesse that the BJP-led Centre unveiled for Delhi through the many inaugurations of high-profile projects the PM carried out over the past few days will be known in the coming days.

'Corruption' in Delhi big issue 

From Modi’s speeches at the various inauguration ceremonies in Delhi last week, it is clear that AAP’s alleged corruption juxtaposed against the Centre’s big ticket infra-push and would be the centrepiece of the BJP’s poll campaign. Will it be enough to propel the BJP to power when countered by the AAP’s populist schemes of the past, whose beneficiary base is substantial, and its promise of expanding this welfare net further if voted back to power?

AAP sheen worn off

There can be no denying that much of the sheen that AAP came within 2013 has worn off now. With its entire top brass, party convenor Arvind Kejriwal and his closest aide Manish Sisodia included, embroiled in corruption cases and having served various spells of time as undertrials in Tihar Jail, the AAP is no longer seen as the party of honest and clean politics that it had promised to represent. Three successive stints in power have also brought a visible element of anti-incumbency; rattling the party enough to bench a large chunk of incumbent MLAs in favour of ‘fresh faces’.

The AAP’s ideology-neutral politics, which saw the party either willingly play along with the BJP or slump into silence when Muslims were targeted through a discriminatory Citizenship Amendment Act and in the February 2020 North East Delhi riots that broke out days after the AAP was voted back to power in Delhi, has also eroded the popularity that the party enjoyed in constituencies where the minority community has a sizeable presence. An erosion in the party’s base, though arguably less than in Muslim-dominated areas, is also visible in areas of Dalit concentration owing to the AAP’s inability to prevent attrition of its popular Dalit leaders such as Rajendra Pal Gautam (now with the Congress) and be vocal on issues concerning the community.

AAP hopeful of win

The AAP, its poll strategists believe, can overcome these considerable challenges “on the strength of the revolutionary work” that the party’s government has done in the sectors of education and health over the past decade and because of its populist schemes for free electricity and water. The party also believes that by projecting Kejriwal as its CM face, the AAP can compel voters to re-elect its government since “neither BJP nor Congress have a credible alternative to Kejriwal”.

Further, while AAP leaders initially felt that the party “using” Atishi as a “stop-gap CM” for less than six months” could play out poorly with women voters, they think the party’s poll promise of a monthly cash dole of Rs 2100 to all women and, importantly, Bidhuri’s “sexist and abusive” language against Atishi (and even Priyanka Gandhi) would help minimise such electoral damage.

Congress, a shadow of what once was

This then leaves the Congress. Once Delhi’s undisputed party of choice for power under an immensely popular Sheila Dikshit, the Congress now has neither a leader nor an organisation nor a narrative to turn the tide in its favour. Its central leadership and Delhi unit are visibly at odds with each other on how the party must engage with the AAP with the former hoping merely for a “non-confrontational adjustment” that could help the Grand Old Party re-open its account in the Assembly after a decade and the latter advocating a no-holds barred blitzkrieg.

Also Read: Modi on development projects inauguration spree in Delhi ahead of poll

This curious divergence of views within the Congress has played out on more than one occasion in just the past three months. The Congress’s Delhi unit, helmed by former MLA Devender Yadav, carried out a month-long Delhi Nyay Yatra that ended early last December. Though the DNY was fashioned after Rahul Gandhi’s two Bharat Jodo yatras and covered all 70 assembly segments of the national capital, no central leader of any consequence – party chief Mallikarjun Kharge, his predecessors Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, party general secretary Priyanka Gandhi or even organisational general secretary KC Venugopal – deemed it necessary to participate in the DNY even once. A Delhi unit had hoped to make up for this glaring absence with a Delhi Nyay Chaupal that Rahul was supposed to participate in last month to interact with Delhiites from all walks of life. However, this event was called off at the last minute without the party giving any explanation.

Ajay Maken's self-goal

Then came the Congress’s own moment of scaling the depths of coarse electoral discourse. At a press conference, Congress’s national Treasurer and veteran Delhi leader Ajay Maken, a former Speaker of the Delhi Assembly, dubbed Kejriwal “anti-national” at a press conference. When the AAP protested and called for the Congress’s expulsion from the Opposition’s INDIA bloc, Maken took an even more defiant stance; declaring that he would address another press conference to explain why he called Kejriwal “anti-national”. The press conference was later called off, apparently after Maken was given a dressing down by Kharge and Rahul, without the party or Maken offering any reasons.

The Congress’s Delhi unit now hopes that their central leaders would at least campaign for the party in the upcoming polls “with the same vigour” as they do in any other election.

Congress banks on Dalits, Muslims

The Delhi unit did manage to prevail over the central leadership to field “strong candidates” against key AAP leaders to signal that “we have not given up on the hope of reviving the party in Delhi”, a senior Delhi Congress leader told The Federal.

This is what, perhaps, best explains the party’s decision to field former MP and late Sheila Dikshit’s son Sandeep Dikshit against Kejriwal in the New Delhi seat, All India Mahila Congress chief Alka Lamba against Atishi in Kalkaji and former Delhi Mayor Farhad Suri against Manish Sisodia from the Jangpura constituency. The Congress, sources say, believes its “best chance of victory” is in constituencies which have a sizeable Muslim or Dalit electorate as the AAP’s hold on both these communities has slipped.