Delhi polls: Modi-Kejriwal spar on graft sets stage for shriller campaign

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s piercing jibes at Delhi’s ruling party over allegations of corruption and AAP convenor Arvind Kejriwal’s caustic rebuttals on Friday (January 3), anchored in the populism and welfare driven schemes of the Delhi government, gave a glimpse of the poll pitch that the two parties wish to play on as each prepares to trounce the other.

Also read: PM spent 39 mins cursing AAP govt as Centre did nothing for Delhi: Kejriwal

BJP latches onto corruption narrative

Modi predictably used Friday’s inauguration and dedication of a slew of projects for Delhi to launch the BJP’s campaign against the AAP; contrasting the Centre’s largesse for the national capital against the corruption allegations that Kejriwal’s party has been mired in for the last few years. Electorally, if the BJP had, until a few years ago, handled the AAP with kid gloves – allowing the Congress to often call the decade-old outfit BJP’s ‘B Team’ – those gloves were now off.

The prime minister’s likening of the AAP government with an ‘aapda’ (disaster) for Delhi and his assertion that he too, over the past decade of occupying the country’s highest executive office, could have “built a sheeshmahal” for himself but chose to build four crore houses for the poor made it clear that the AAP’s alleged corruption would be the pivot around which the BJP’s Delhi poll campaign would revolve.

Sheeshmahal jibe

‘Sheeshmahal’ is the name that the AAP’s political rivals have consistently used for the official residence of the Delhi chief minister, which was refurbished at a massive cost to the exchequer while Kejriwal was still the chief minister. With the bungalow no longer occupied – hurdles created by the Delhi Lieutenant Governor and bureaucracy led to incumbent Chief Minister Atishi vacating the bungalow within days of moving in – the BJP and the Congress have been busy sharing videos of ‘sheeshmahal’ on social media platforms to “expose” the truth behind the tall claims of austerity that Kejriwal once made about himself.

Also read: Priest scheme: AAP may win ‘better Hindu’ game but what about state coffers?

Vijender Gupta, senior BJP MLA and leader of Opposition in the Delhi Assembly, told The Federal that Modi had “exposed the truth behind Kejriwal and AAP’s hypocrisy over fighting corruption.”

“The party that came into existence claiming it would fight for clean politics and root out corruption is today steeped in corruption. The prime minister has told the people of Delhi the truth about the disaster called AAP and it is now our (Delhi BJP) job to take this message to every Delhi voter so that Delhi can free itself of this disaster,” Gupta said.

BJP’s poll tool of shrill rhetoric

For the BJP, a majority in the Delhi Assembly has been elusive since it lost power to the Congress back in 1998. Even though the saffron party enjoyed a brute majority in the Municipal Corporation of Delhi for much of Sheila Dikshit and even Kejriwal’s tenure as chief minister and swept the seven Lok Sabha seats of the national capital in the last three Lok Sabha polls, it has never managed to replicate the same success in the Delhi Assembly.

Also read: Kejriwal's scheme for priests: Populist gimmick or political strategy?

With corruption allegations surrounding the entire top leadership of the AAP for a better part of the past five years – senior party leaders, from Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia to Sanjay Singh and Satyender Jail, are currently out on bail – and a meddlesome Lieutenant Governor constantly creating administrative hurdles to prevent a seamless rollout of many of the government’s populist schemes, the party faces its most challenging electoral battle yet as Delhi goes to polls. And, with Modi leading the charge against AAP in the absence of any viable alternative leader the BJP can pitch against Kejriwal, the war of words is expected to only get shriller and uglier.

AAP’s counterstrike

Modi’s offensive against Kejriwal and his party, however, isn’t without a flipside of its own. This was evident in the counter-strike that Kejriwal launched within hours of the prime minister’s no-holds barred attack.

In his typically combative style, Kejriwal hit back at Modi asserting, “talking about ‘sheeshmahal’ doesn’t suit one who builds a house worth Rs 2,700 crore for himself, who travels in an airplane worth Rs 8,400 crore, one who wears a suit worth Rs 10 lakh,” the former Delhi chief minister said. Kejriwal’s “house worth Rs 2700 crore” jibe is a reference to the Prime Minister’s new residence being built as part of the ongoing expansion of the Central Vista; a multi-million rupee plan widely dubbed by the wider Opposition as Modi’s pet vanity project.

Also read: Kejriwal accuses BJP of manipulating electoral roll

The common thread

There is also a stark commonality in the offensive launched by both Modi and Kejriwal. In his speech, like many he has made earlier, Modi built himself up as the leader who thinks only of the people. This is also an inalienable part of Kejriwal’s own rhetoric as the AAP chief has a penchant of projecting himself as a family member – a son or a brother – of Delhi residents who wants to improve the lives of his people with welfare measure of free or heavily subsidised electricity, water, education, health services and even ‘teerth yatras’ (pilgrimage).

This competitive welfarism of the BJP and the AAP, with the former showcasing central schemes such as Ayushman Bharat, housing for the poor, etc. and the latter playing up its own freebies, would also be as central to their poll narratives as the claims and counter claims over corruption and populism. The AAP, party sources said, is also expected to employ the ‘victim card’ to the hilt; asserting that the cases slapped against its top brass are politically motivated to “destroy Kejriwal” while the pro-people schemes of the AAP government are repeatedly blocked by the Centre and its nominated LG of Delhi.