Delhi results: Congress failed to seize vacant space left by AAP

The result of the Assembly elections in Delhi are being interpreted and misinterpreted by the various stakeholders according to what suits them. The AAP looks at it as a positive vote for its leadership and promises. The BJP considers it as a complete rejection of the Congress, while the Congress reads them as an encouraging consolidation of the anti-Modi vote. There is a little bit of truth in all of these interpretations. Yes, the promises made by the Aam Aadmi Party did capture the imagination of a people used to good governance for 15 years and deprived of a government for almost a year – a year of uncertainties, charges, counter charges and dramatic political intrigue.

Delhi had gotten used to better times and was desperate to clutch at straws of hope. 

Yes, the Congress came down from a decent vote share of 25 per cent in the 2013 Assembly elections and 15 per cent in 2014 Lok Sabha to a meagre 9.7 per cent in this Assembly elections. It took 15 years in the state and ten years at the Centre for the Congress to reach this position.

The story of BJP, however, is a horror story. It should scare not just the BJP, but also AAP and the Congress. How can this steep fall from 60 Assembly segments in the Lok Sabha to a mere three in the Assembly elections be explained? A master communicator at the helm, a master strategist monitoring the campaign round the clock, a swooning cadre on the street and an army of IT professionals manning the virtual space to give every "tweet ka jawaab WhatsApp se". Not to forget the 120 MPs, half the cabinet and thousands of workers imported from across India, increasing the per square kilometre density of Delhi. And yet...

That the Congress vote, which decided to shift away from the party opted for AAP and not the BJP and its agenda, should worry Narendra Modi. The anti-Modi vote of the capital of India stands at 68 per cent.

The magnitude of this defeat will take more time than it took for Bhuj to get rehabilitated after the killer quake of 2001, which brought Narendra Modi to power in Gandhi Nagar. Observers anticipate several high intensity aftershocks as there is an intense seismic activity being reported from Lutyens' Delhi and Nagpur.

Urban legends in politics are not to be easily forgotten. And especially when the legends are half tested there is always a corner in mind to give it a chance. The people of Delhi decided to give AAP another dash at power. With the seemingly clear minded one-sided voting, the AAP swept almost all the regions of Delhi. From the Jat/Gujjar rural belt riled by the BJP articulating their opposition to the Ordinance on Land Acquisition, to the traders of old and north Delhi, Muslims, Punjabis, Purvanchali, upper-middle class, working class and Dalits, going by its performance on the 12 seats reserved for the Scheduled Caste candidates – you name them and they all went with AAP.

Clearly, it was the vote for spectacular promises made by the AAP and a vote to see those promises coming through and more important in quick time. To simplify, the electoral promises made by the Aam Aadmi Party had cut an instant appeal on varied groups of voters which were eagerly waiting for the delivery so promised by the high decibel BJP campaigning during the general elections 2014.Youth was floored by the promises on women security, expansion of education apparatus with giving choices in terms of more colleges, free Wi-Fi and most important the feeling of freshness in the party which was able to convince the young voters that it is a "strong" party which could give them what they wanted.

This category of voter was the one which had no memory of what Delhi was like in the pre-1998 era. They were born in a Delhi which already had 24/7 quality power supply, 150 flyovers, 200km of Metro, glitzy malls and throbbing growth centres in Noida and Gurgaon. Their aspirations differed. The fact that all this was achieved by the Congress government which not only promised all this, it also delivered it, did not cut much ice. They were angry. Angry with rapes, angry with talk of corruption in 2G, CWG and Coal block allocations. They were not looking at ideology, development or truth. They sought change.

Riding on the Anna wave, Arvind Kejriwal tapped into this anger. Narendra Modi too rode on the same wave of anger. One became chief minister for 49 days and the other became prime minister, only to lose his popularity in what is known to be the microcosm of India in less than 265 days.

Like in sports, in politics too, the players and teams need to win small important moments that in the end turn decisive. It could be said that Congress failed to win these small moments in Delhi right after the Lok Sabha elections when AAP was nearly written off. They failed to seize the vacant space left by AAP with no consensus on the state leadership, lack of a robust campaign, confusion over the issues on which they needed to advertise the performance of its three governments in the state and two governments at the Centre.

It also failed to exploit the large space in 23 odd seats of Delhi’s dynamic rural belt where farmers were miffed with the BJP over the Land Ordinance. This rural belt accounted for nearly 50 per cent of BJP’s seats in the subsequent assemblies since 2003 yet Congress cadre was nowhere to be seen holding parleys with the farmers.

And another its traditional fort, Dalits and minorities deserted Congress as much for its weakened position as also for the lack of coherent communication. A spirited attack by the Congress against the BJP on issues of ghar wapsi, love jihad, sadhvi’s statements and coronation of Godse was missing too. This led to the failure of the party to convince the minority that Congress was a serious player.The party could only manage second position on five Assembly seats of Badli, Mongol Puri, Matia Mahal and Mustafabad while it was forgotten at 3rd and 4th position on the rest of the 65 seats - a severe crash in its supplementary tally where it stood 2nd on 17 seats in 2013.

With such a mandate comes the responsibility to deliver and deliver fast. With the promises of cheap provisions comes the need for more money and more money requires more inflow. It has to be seen how AAP 2.0 manages economics of subsidies and more subsidies in the capital city.

In their 49-days stint last year, they tried to fulfil their promise of reduction in consumer’s electricity expenditure by 50 per cent. But in reality they hid the subsidy on electricity that came around Rs. 61 crores for three months (January to March 2014). That 49 days AAP government never presented the clear picture of the budgetary allocations. The 15 years of Congress government chalked, pushed and partly implemented various social security and welfare schemes for the poor, for the working class, and the slum dwellers which added up to Rs. 1,737 crores, a 12 per cent of the total state government expenditure as per the budget of 2012-13. If AAP attempts to oversimplify the subsidies, these programs will suffer. And if the stake holders of these programmes and schemes suffer there will be a heavier price that AAP will be made to pay. AAP has just given Delhi’s voters a yearning for its own version of Achche Din.

As Narendra Modi would have realised, it is easy to tap into anger but to manage voter-impatience is something else. He got punished for not delivering in less than eight months. Arvind Kejriwal has just begun a sprint with more stop watches than the hands that supported him.