Poll rout puts a question mark on AAP’s future
new delhi — The Delhi municipal elections, swept by the BJP (181 of 272 seats), might well bring the opposition Congress party (30 seats), and the AAP (48 seats) together just for their survival.
There has been a funereal silence observed by both the opposition parties since the announcement of the results on Wednesday. The BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) would be in charge of the MCD for another five years. The party has been ruling the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) for the last 10 years.
The Congress leaders in charge of the local affairs, Ajay Maken and PC Chacko, said they were responsible for the poor performance of the party, and resigned from their positions.
But that has not stopped the blame game. Sources in the Congress party said, a new strategy is being worked out to stem the rot.
The AAP’s (Aam Aadmi Party) own usually garrulous leader Arvind Kejriwal, too, accepted the defeat in good spirit and said he would work to win the confidence of the people back. His aides said Kejriwal was not averse to join hands with the Congress to form a united opposition within the MCD, and a larger, united role in the nation at large.
It’s likely that women will play a key role in the emerging scheme of things. Out of the 30 seats that the Congress won, 17 are women. For the BJP, women won 80 seats. For the AAP, women won only 19 out of the 48 seats. Out of the 272 seats, 138 seats are officially reserved for women. But that number is likely to go up even in general category. A Congress spokesperson said: “Women hold the key to the future, and we are thinking of their more visible presence in the running of the party affairs.”
The former Congress chief minister of Delhi, Sheila Dikshit, said the party was not aggressive enough in its campaign, and that just now the BJP is cashing in on the popularity of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
As for the AAP, Kejriwal was largely missing in action. Political experts said the party that had emerged so popular in 2015 as an alternative to the BJP and the Congress had lost its way. The party’s rout is seen as a personal setback for Kejriwal.
Till early in the week, one of the reasons for the AAP’s poor performance in the recently held assembly elections in Punjab and Goa were pinned on the “tampered electronic voting machines.” But Kejriwal did not tout that as an explanation for the MCD loss. In fact, he had withdrawn from the scene, leaving the responsibility of addressing the media to his deputy, Manish Sisodia. It’s an open secret that Kejriwal harbours an ambition to challenge Modi as the united opposition’s prime ministerial candidate in the near future. The recent political setbacks that concluded with the MCD polls effectively dashes that hope.
“The party will collapse by January 2017,” said a newspaper, quoting an astrologist. “There will be a vertical split before June 15 this year. There is a possibility of another faction of the party being launched. Arvind Kejriwal will disappear by 2017, and there will be a big revolt against him on Delhi’s streets for not fulfilling the promises he made.”
Certainly, just now the situation looks dire for Kejriwal.
As it stands, Modi and his party are sailing into a political space that sees no resistance to their designs. That’s good for the political agenda of the party, which believes in economic nationalism, and Hindu resurgence. But India is a democracy, and an effective opposition is an indispensable condition for its vibrancy. The MCD poll results, however, suggest that India has just taken another step in the direction of a one-party democracy, a contradiction in terms.