AAP in Delhi: A Sweeping Drub of Political Stereotypes

The sweeping triumph of Aam Admi Party to the Delhi assemble has once again proved all the calculations of political stereotypes wrong. The layman’s party, sticking to its earlier stated and tested stand of good governance, accountability and a public life free of corruption, faired spectacularly to outshine the juggernaut of Prime Minister Nardendra Modi—to form the much needed government at Delhi with a complete majority at the house winning 67 seats out of 70. This sweeping victory by AAP in Delhi assembly polls also facilitated a complete drub of the Congress—a party that was in power in that UT for three consecutive terms, led by Sheila Dixit. This is for the first time that the grand old party of India has failed to open an account in any assembly elections in the country. Overall this remarkable victory of the AAP signals a new beginning in the political spectrum of our country—creating a credible alternative to the common people who have been fed up of the stereotypes.

The success of AAP was actually scripted much earlier through some unconventional methodology and data analysis undertaken by some of its volunteers to design an electoral manifesto after the 49 day government it had had come to an end. Called the Delhi Dialogue, the AAP started an initiative to conduct a comprehensive study of the problems that plague Delhi and take stock of the aspirations of its citizens. This was used to create a concrete, feasible and long-term roadmap and vision for Delhi. Their election manifesto thus became the synthesis of hundreds of expert interviews as well as thousands of citizen meetings and lakhs of feedback forms, online comments, email suggestions, project proposals which were mobilized with the new age apps like Whatsapp messages, Tweets and Facebook comments. That way AAP’s Delhi manifesto was not a run-of-the-mill production of a few wise men, seen in other Indian political parties Their manifesto was a natural follow up of Delhi Dialogue where presented a detailed, structured, feasible and sustainable plan to solve the intractable problems of Delhi. The other stereotypes did not do that and was conventional—one hoping that the success at the national level in a much larger form would easily pay off and the other was miserable in not learning from the changing political landscape of the country, and particularly in the Capital.

The AAP was very categorical since its inception—an urge to stand up for the common people and for their concerns, to provide bare necessities like water and electricity fairly and to end corruption in the public domain. During its momentary stay at the helm of affairs in Delhi, the AAP did provide free supply of water and electricity tariffs cut to fifty per cent for the Delhites. The Delhi Dialogue resulted in making the 70 point poll manifesto in which all its agendas of the earlier period were retained for the betterment of the common citizens. Some of the promises of AAP this time were Water as a Right, Delhi Janlokpal Bill and Swaraj Bill. Water as a Right was made to provide universal access to clean drinking water to all citizens of Delhi at an affordable prices—an issue with global importance mattering local concerns. The promise of reducing electricity bills by half in a more efficient, transparent and accountable system to regulate and audit the power generation and distribution companies was another important issue that was endorsed by the Delhi voters overwhelmingly in the polls. Likewise AAP’s Delhi Jan Lokpal Bill to ensure a time-bound investigation in matters of corruption, its power to initiate investigations and prosecution against those charged with corruption, the provision of a Citizens’ Charter in all government offices in Delhi and protections for whistleblowers really attracted the public for this novice party as against the big national parties that had never cared for such provisions. AAP’s objective of bringing democracy and governance to the micro level called the Swaraj Bill to devolve power directly to the people is the point where the rest of the political fraternity lacked the innovations to win the support of the voters. Apart from these there were other points in the poll manifesto of the AAP that were no match to other political parties. To build 2 lakh public toilets, five hundred government schools, two hundred colleges, quality drugs for all at affordable prices, formation of women security force, pro-farmer land reform, no FDI in retail, regularization of contractual posts, flats for slum dwellers at the same place, control of price rise and promotion of Punjabi, Urdu and Sanskrit were some of the points mentioned in AAP’s manifesto for which they were responded so overwhelmingly at the elections.

For the rest of the parties contesting the Delhi polls, the promises and manifestoes were too conventional and lacked new visions and ideas. For the BJP, which has been enjoying fairly spectacular electoral victories in many state assembly polls since coming to power at the Centre in 2014 on the popular development bandwagon, failed to hold to its juggernaut. Over confidence, resorting to smear poll campaigns by mocking the Gotra of Arvind Kejriwal and brining in Kiran Bedi as the chief ministerial candidate to do a Sarah Palin by ignoring senior party aspirants cost the party dearly. Kiran Bedi’s personal failure to read the mood of the Delhi voters was apparent when she spoke about the greatness of Barack Obama’s visit to Delhi, an event that is very common for Delhites where foreign dignitaries do visit regularly for being the national capital. The non-visibility of the development dream promised by Narendra Modi in the last eight months, his government’s pro-market policies and centralized structure failed to impress the Delhi voters as the anti-incumbency factor was absent this time. For the Congress, the party was completely out of the contention, never seemed to be in the fray. Thus the common men in Delhi have gone for an alternative. (The writer is a freelance writer based in Assam, India)

ENDS

© Scoop Media