In the just declared Lok Sabha results, as some people said, there was something for everbody to celebrate about. Of the few exceptions who did not get anything to rejoice about is Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party.
While in Delhi, INDI alliance under Kejriwal’s leadership lost all the seats, in Punjab, where also it’s the ruling party, it came a distant second to the Congress in the number of the seats won.
Despite a visible turmoil and close contest in national politics, Delhi voted one-sided for the BJP. One wonders how the saffron party which faced rejection on many seats in the neighbouring states, came out with such a decisive result in its favour in Delh? The answer is simple, the complete dismissal of the politics of malgovernance and corruption let loose by Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party government.
Delhi in 2024 did not vote as aggressively as it had done in 2014 or even 2019.The question was, did Delhi vote differently from the previous polls just in numbers or in spirit too. The answer is -- Delhi’s vote this time was in way endorsement of the Narendra Modi government’s actions against the Aam Aadmi Party and its leader Arvind Kejriwal.
The poll campaign this time in the national Capital was cantankerous focusing mostly on mudslinging. It was a campaign where the issues pertaining to Delhi were all lost in the bitter cacophony created by Delhi chief minister, who played the victim card to the hilt.
Arvind Kejriwal’s aggressive campaign, following his release on interim bail, started with the announcements of his guarantees viz-a-viz the guarantees of the Prime Minister. The gimmick came a cropper. Next he blamed BJP of planning his murder, it had no takers. Arvind Kejriwal’s release from jail in the end bore no fruits as he failed to find any sympathy for his so-called ‘martyrdom’.
Despite being in power in the national Capital for the past 11 years, and having contested three Lok Sabha polls, the AAP has once again failed to make a debut in the House of People from its home state. In a spirited defence of the defeat on all the four our seats it contested from Delhi, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leaders have lauded its electoral performanceand held that the results must be judged against the circumstances in which the party fought the election.
They have blamed BJP of threatenings AAP volunteers, trying to buy its MLAs, and hatching many conspiracies with an indirect reference to the Swati Maliwal episode.There may be some truth in it but the voter did not seem interested.
On the other hand, in its hour of glory, having substantially strengthened its electoral sinews across the country, the Congress leadership also must ponder on the golden opportunity it missed to revive the party in the national Capital. It committed two major mistakes – first entering into an alliance with the AAP and second pushing likes of Kanhaiya Kumar and Udit Raj as the face of the party in the national Capital.
In the run-up to the polls, the grand old party paid a very heavy price with its state president Arvinder Singh Lovely along with other senior leaders including many former MLAs and Ministers quitting the party protesting the alliance with AAP. The Congress leadership’s obsession with foisting of Kanhaiya Kumar, and also Udit Raj, proved to be counter productive.The cadres could never reconcile to the fact that the claims of established Delhi Congress leaders were overlooked while giving tickets to these two.
The AAP has already announced that the alliance with Congress was over, as its not given up the hope of repeating revival in assemblye polls in 2025, as it happened 2015 ands 2020 after facing rout in the Lok Sabha polls in 2014 and 2019. Congress too has respeonded similarly.
Hopefully Congress has realised its folly of aligining with AAP. Thety should fight the assembly polls with its own vigour and cadre rather than piggyride on a party enmeshed in corruption and depravity.It should also realise that Kanhaiya Kumar could be good rabble rouser, a facsimileof Arvind Kejriwal but would never inspire the rank and file of the Congress workers.
Sidharth Mishra
Author and president, Centre for Reforms,
Development & Justice