The Aam Aadmi Party’s victory and the manner in which the party consolidated its strengths in Delhi hold important

lessons for mainstream political practice. The popular verdict has implications also for the Modi-Shah kind of politics. By

VENKITESH RAMAKRISHNAN

THE POLITICAL ANALYST HARIRAJ SINGH TYAGI, who was a long-term associate of the socialist leader Ram Manohar Lohia, used to recount a personal experience, citing it as the ultimate example of what he termed as the “democratic principle” that guides the Indian population. This was in early 1977, on the very day Prime Minister Indira Gandhi relaxed certain provisions of the state of emergency she had declared and announced general elections. On that day, the Socialist Party leadership summoned Tyagi, who was in Meerut, for consultations. He hired a cycle rickshaw to go to the Meerut railway station, and casually asked the rickshaw puller if he had heard the news. The rickshaw puller replied promptly: “Chunav ghoshna ke baarey mein radio mein suna. ab maa bete ko kuch gantantra sikhaayenge” [Heard about the proclamation of elections in the radio. Now, will teach mother and son some democracy].” The mother and son referred to were of course Indira Gandhi and Sanjay Gandhi, who was considered responsible for many of the atrocities committed during the Emergency. Tyagi used to say that this comment by a probably illiterate rickshaw puller made clear not only what the verdict of that election would be but also the intrinsic commitment Indians had for the democracy principle.

Tyagi passed away five years ago. But the Delhi Assembly elections of 2015 once again highlighted the “democracy principle” that this keen political analyst underscored time and again. Throughout the run-up to the campaign, one oft-repeated comment by people belonging to different strata of society was: “Har jage pe Narendra Modi theek nahi hain. Gujarat mein woh, Haryana mein woh, Jharkhand or Maharashtra mein woh. Dilli mein bhi unka raaj bahut zyaada ho jaayega.” (It is not right to have Narendra Modi everywhere. He is in Gujarat, Haryana, Jharkhand and Maharashtra. Having Modi rule in Delhi too would be way too much.) This writer heard this refrain for the first time during a conversation between a paan shop owner and a man who sold vegetables in a pushcart 10 days before the elections. With each passing day, similar remarks could be heard from across the national capital. The subtext of all the comments was to teach “some democracy” to the new power duo at the Centre, Prime Minister Modi and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Amit Shah, who trampled over the organisational and democratic rights of even party workers by foisting on them the candidature of Kiran Bedi. Clearly, the democratic principle was at its assertive best.

One of the central messages of the significant victory of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which reduced the BJP’s strength to three seats and the Congress’ to naught in the 70-member Assembly, is about this democracy principle. But this is not the only message that this verdict has thrown up. It is bound to influence the national polity in diverse ways, both at the level of politics, including realpolitik, and in terms of policy and ideological implications. While the assertion of the democracy principle is indeed a larger political phenomenon that has far-reaching value, its immediate ramifications relate to the performance of the nearly 10-month-old Modi-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government at the Centre.

The pollster and political analyst Mathew Vilayasseril put it succinctly: “The Delhi verdict is both a pro-AAP vote and an anti-Modi vote. BJP leaders may keep on saying that this result is no referendum on Modi and his government, but all that cannot diminish the relevance and prominence of this factor. Despite projecting Kiran Bedi as Chief Minister, the entire BJP

campaign revolved around Modi. Even after the campaign ended officially, the BJP came out with full-page advertisements in almost all the newspapers of Delhi and the focus was on Modi. A huge picture of Modi was accompanied by text that highlighted the so-called achievements of the Modi government in the past nine months. The call was to replicate these in Delhi by electing a government that would facilitate the Modi regime at the Centre. On his part, in his campaign speeches Modi asked voters to elect a government that would listen to him. The electorate of Delhi rejected this outright and in absolutely unmistakable terms. Popular response during the run-up to the elections brought out the reasons for this rejection. The overwhelming strain in these responses was that in the Modi government there was too much talk and that action was not commensurate with the scale of talk.” At the same time, the run-up to the elections as well as the verdict signified a sort of nostalgia, especially among the less privileged sections of society, for the 49 days of AAP rule (story on page 14).

A cross section of Delhi voters this correspondent interacted with after the results were declared confirmed these observations with their own nuances. Harishankar Srivastava, who runs a small shop in South Delhi, said 10 months ago he rooted for Modi and the BJP but became an AAP supporter in the Delhi elections. His reasoning is simple. “During the Lok Sabha election campaign, Modi presented himself as a one-time chaiwalah [tea vendor] who understands the concerns and aspirations of the people. But once in power, Modi’s bearing changed. What we see is a leader who is fond of changing clothes at least five times a day and flying frequently across the globe only to hobnob with foreign leaders. This trend, which was visible right from the day he assumed power, rose to vulgar heights when he turned out in an expensive suit with his name embossed on it during the United States President’s visit. It was clear from all this that at heart Modi was no chaiwalah and that his concern for the poor was not as sincere as was made out to be,” Srivastava said, adding that several BJP supporters shied away from the party for exactly these reasons.

Realpolitik consequence

This dimension of the public opinion on Modi and his government at the Centre has other short- and medium-term implications. One realpolitik consequence has already manifested itself in the comments of the BJP’s allies such as Shiv Sena and the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD). Roundly castigating Modi, Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray asserted that the Delhi debacle was Modi’s responsibility. He added that “the people of Delhi have shown that a tsunami is mightier than a wave”. An Akali Dal candidate in the Delhi elections, Manjinder Singh Sirsa, blamed the defeat, including his own, on the hard-line politics pursued by sections of the BJP and condoned by the top leadership, including Modi and Shah. Referring specifically to the ramzaadon vs haramzaadon remark of Union Minister of State Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti, Sirsa said he was standing next to her when this comment was made and he knew at that very instant that the NDA had lost Delhi.

Commenting on all this, the political analyst Sudhir Panwar said “the meaning of all these voices is indeed that the unquestioned primacy that Modi enjoyed within the NDA will no longer be there”. Panwar added: “More voices will emerge as days go by and it remains to be seen how the Prime Minister will handle it. Especially given the fact that he has not suffered any major criticism in the past one and a half decades of his political career.”

The other negative realpolitik consequence will be in the inner-party equations within the BJP. But the general consensus among observers as well as BJP activists is that this may not manifest concretely in the near future though Ramesh Upadhyaya, brother of the BJP State president

Satish Upadhyaya, termed the results a “defeat of the politics of arrogance”. “The allies will take the first opportunity to react to the Modi-Shah combine’s domineering style of politics. The fact that their leadership is their own masters will facilitate this kind of reaction. But that is not the situation in the BJP. At this point of time, no senior leader has the gumption to take on the Modi-Shah combine. Of course, L.K. Advani, Rajnath Singh, Sushma Swaraj and Nitin Gadkari have serious issues with Modi and Shah, but at this point of time they have no resonance with the rank and file or the organisational network. One of them would have to emerge as a challenger both organisationally and politically, especially with some alternative policy orientation. There are no signs of such emergence now, though Gadkari and Rajnath Singh are better placed to adopt this role whenever they decide to take the plunge,” Panwar said. According to a senior BJP leader considered close to Rajnath Singh, “many things are brewing” in the party but a concrete shape to all that will emerge only if the party suffers a reversal in the Bihar Assembly elections later this year.

Thus, while the inner-party situation may remain quiet for some time, there is little doubt that the AAP juggernaut in Delhi has already inspired and energised non-Congress secular parties in different parts of the country. Janata Dal (United) leader Nitish Kumar, fighting with his back to the wall in Bihar following a revolt by his one-time protege Jitin Ram Manjhi, has characterised the Delhi verdict as a clear referendum on Modi. “The people of Delhi have seen the Modi form of governance in the past nine months and rejected it.”

Nitish Kumar, who had been opposing Manjhi’s decision to recommend dissolution of the Bihar Assembly to face fresh elections immediately, has been emboldened by the Delhi result to state that he and his allies are ready to face the elections any time. Akhilesh Yadav, Samajwadi Party Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, said Delhi marked the first sign of the downslide of the BJP under Modi and added that this descent would reach its nadir when the BJP faced the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections two years hence. The energy and enthusiasm is bound to get reflected in the Budget session of Parliament. Undoubtedly, the Opposition, as a whole, including the Congress, will be more vocal in both Houses.

Positive agenda

Beyond these short-term realpolitik implications, the AAP’s victory and the manner in which the party consolidated its strengths in Delhi raise important questions as well as possibilities in terms of mainstream political practice. It is evident now that the core political and organisational manoeuvre of the AAP right from its inception has been the consistent and creative connect and dialogue with the common people. In fact, the party took it to new heights in Delhi after its defeat in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. The “Delhi Dialogue” that it initiated across the 70 constituencies drew people from all strata of society. In meeting after meeting, people, especially those from the lowest strata of society, lauded the effort of the AAP leadership to understand and list their problems without coming up with unilateral and arbitrary prescriptions to solve them. It was from these interactions that the AAP evolved what it terms a “positive agenda” for each constituency and for Delhi as a whole.

Talking to Frontline, scores of people said this interactive experience was becoming increasingly rare in political parties. Barring a handful of leaders, all parties seemed to suffer from this lack of connect. It was this interaction, coupled with the sensible use of social media, that helped the AAP build up its influence in spite of the near-total rejection of the party by the traditional media, especially in the days following the Lok Sabha results.

Evidently, its people-oriented style of functioning has lessons for all mainstream political parties, particularly the smaller parties belonging to the non-Congress, non-BJP political grouping. The Delhi verdict shows that there is a way to adopt and follow even if they are limited by a lack of resources. But the moot question is whether the leaderships of these parties will be able to take it up creatively, mired as they are in their long-standing and ritualistic hierarchies and styles of functioning.

The response the AAP’s victory has evoked in different parts of the country makes it amply clear that this party and its political-organisational style pose a challenge to all established parties (see story on page 16). No State Assembly election verdict has been celebrated across the country, cutting across barriers of caste and communities. This by itself provides an opportunity for the party to strike roots and grow. Such an initiative by the party will primarily attract the erstwhile Congress support base of Dalits and to some extent Muslims as shown by the Delhi verdict. However, indications are that the party does not want to rush into a large-scale organisational effort at the moment. Senior AAP leader Prof. Anand Kumar said the party wanted to take it forward step by step, evolving positive agendas in each State and studying their respective characteristics closely through widespread interactions. “And, of course, our formulations on larger issues such as land reforms and globalisation will be stated in clearer terms though we have already given broad indications through our political actions.”

Although none of the top leaders of the AAP has stated so, the party’s next big electoral stop is the Punjab Assembly elections in 2017, although the party may contest the forthcoming municipal corporation elections in Bangalore and Mumbai. While this limited endeavour may not be in accordance with the hope and excitement generated across the country, the AAP leadership wants to project that as part of the new politics it is trying to advance.

The AAP employed its own methods to convince the voters of its seriousness to form an honest and corruption-free

government, and the campaign worked only too well. By AJOY ASHIRWAD MAHAPRASHASTA

ON February 10, the people of the Union Territory of Delhi made the Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) victory look like an electoral fantasy. It was a classic instance of a modern-day David taking on Goliath. The fledgling party, which contested its first Assembly elections on the same turf on December 4, 2013, with limited resources and a loose organisational structure, trounced the formidable and organisationally strong Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in style. In what pollsters consider an unprecedented majority, the AAP won 67 of the 70 seats and 54.3 per cent of the total votes polled, with the BJP winning only three seats and 32.2 per cent of the votes. The Congress got 9.7 per cent of the votes. While electoral pundits had predicted a win for the AAP in the sharply bipolar election, not even the party had expected such a spectacular performance.The AAP’s victory is impressive considering that under the direct instructions of BJP party president and political micro-manager Amit Shah, the party had deployed all its Union Cabinet Ministers and 120 Members of Parliament to campaign in Delhi, a half-State. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Amit Shah, who have the reputation of winning 41 elections for the party, addressed almost 20 rallies in the national capital. Fresh from its electoral triumphs in Maharashtra and Jharkhand, and a solid performance in Jammu and Kashmir, the BJP, with Modi as its mascot, encountered its first real challenge ever since the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) led by it came to power with a clean majority in May 2014. Actually, Delhi expected a contest between a stronger and election savvy BJP, a lethargic Congress and a fractured three-year-old AAP. The AAP, which was in the fray on the sheer strength of its

30,000-odd volunteers, looked organised enough to halt the Modi juggernaut. Its highly energetic campaign with anti-corruption measures on top of its agenda, coupled with its pre-liberalisation ideas of governance, seems to have appealed the people’s emotional-ethical core.The AAP’s regrouping as a Delhi-centric party after it suffered a huge defeat in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, when it contested some 470 seats in several States, was deliberate and politically contextual. The BJP had campaigned effectively during the Lok Sabha elections, labelling the AAP convenor Arvind Kejriwal a bhagoda (fugitive) for resigning as the Chief Minister of Delhi after serving in office for 49 days. A large section of Delhi’s electorate bought the BJP’s campaign that Kejriwal and his group of supporters were inefficient administrators and were only a bunch of ambitious political activists. The AAP’s below par performance in the Lok Sabha elections ruined its standing in comparison to the BJP’s rising fortunes in subsequent Assembly elections.But the AAP started to respond to the crisis almost immediately after the Lok Sabha elections. The national executive of the party, during a series of discussions, realised that the political traction it had in Delhi should be strengthened and expanded for the party to emerge as a credible political alternative. And so Delhi became its focus once again.The party started a campaign urging the Modi government to lift President’s Rule in Delhi and hold fresh elections. Simultaneously, it started two important programmes, the Delhi Dialogue and Mission Vistaar. Under the first programme, the AAP held meetings in each and every constituency of Delhi, seeking the people’s opinion and getting to know their problems. The Delhi Dialogue was an experiment in a participatory democratic model and connected the AAP with the people once again.This platform was used to expand the party network and induct new volunteers under Mission Vistaar, a nationwide campaign to connect AAP volunteers. The focus in Delhi during the Assembly elections was on building the organisation right up to the polling booth level. Frontal organisations such as the AAP’s women’s wing and the Gramin Yuva Morcha were also started in Delhi in this period.As the NDA government at the Centre was contemplating the best time to hold fresh elections to the Delhi Assembly, Kejriwal, through the Delhi Dialogue, launched a campaign against the Union government for deliberately delaying the holding of elections. Throughout this period, and in a politically novel way, Kejriwal visited every colony in the national capital and personally apologised for resigning without taking the people’s opinion. (Kejriwal had sought the people’s opinion, through a referendum in December 2013 on the formation of an AAP government with the support of the Congress.) At the same time, he also explained the logic behind his resignation, taking the sting out of the Congress’ and the BJP’s campaigns. Thereafter, it was only a one-way swing to victory.The AAP’s political campaign was innovative and its anti-corruption campaign appealed to people’s ethical side. The party employed new methods such as flash mobs andnukkad-natak (street-corner skits) to canvass support. It refrained from holding extravagant public meetings, preferring road shows and door-to-door campaigns. The AAP’s small jan sabhas (people’s councils) in middle-class colonies and jhuggi-jhopri(slum) settlements were in continuum with its Delhi Dialogue meetings. The party election posters on autorickshaws and banners at important chaurahas (squares) requesting the voters to elect Kejriwal with a majority and ensure an honest government for five years had tremendous appeal against the BJP’s generic call for “development” under Modi’s leadership.

The voters were able to relate to the AAP’s idea of governance. The party’s 70-point manifesto talked about concrete issues such as access to drinking water, cheaper electricity, better sanitation in colonies, regularisation of contract workers, ensuring women’s safety, quality government-sponsored primary and higher education, better health care by improving the conditions of the existing hospitals and dispensaries and opening new hospitals, and Internet facilities at public places.An important aspect of the AAP’s campaign was to remind people of its 49 days in government and the steps it took then. “People appreciated our government. They experienced substantive changes in their everyday lives. Our efforts to curb corruption and improve basic facilities were noticed. In the past nine months, people did not feel the same. The harassment they faced in their daily lives continued. We had a positive campaign about what we did and what we can do,” Atishi Marlena of the AAP toldFrontline.The AAP’s Jo Kaha so Kiya (What we said, we did) campaign and its posters comparing its 49-day rule with the Modi government’s performance worked. It reminded the people of the government’s responsibilities to ensure access to basic facilities, an aspect of governance the Congress and the BJP had ignored since the start of economic liberalisation.Most importantly, the AAP was anchored by its large army of political volunteers, some of whom had left well-paid jobs or were working part-time as political activists to take the message of the AAP across to the people. People associated this aspect of the AAP with the values of sacrifice, honesty, idealism and selflessness. Young people in denims and casuals, carrying a broomstick (the party’s political symbol) and donning the “I am aam aadmi” cap, were seen campaigning in the streets of Delhi. Middle-aged and senior citizens were seen braving the Delhi winter to canvass in the gullies of unauthorised colonies.At a time when the political class has lost much of its credibility, the AAP has emerged as an alternative.By the time the BJP hit the campaign trail, the AAP had already set the agenda for the elections. As a consequence, the BJP had to respond to the issues raised by the AAP. And it did so with a largely negative and slanderous campaign. At the four rallies he addressed, Modi hit out at Kejriwal, calling him an urban naxalite and anarchist. Some BJP leaders called Kejriwal a “monkey” and a “thief”. Calling upon the people to walk with Modi in his “mission of development”, the BJP indulged in a slanderous campaign against Kejriwal, a factor that BJP State president Satish Upadhyay cited as one of the reasons for the BJP’s resounding drubbing.The BJP was clearly caught off guard in Delhi. Instead of a positive campaign focussing on people’s issues, it did a formulaic, public relations-driven campaign, which had worked well in the parliamentary elections. In the past six months, the Sangh Parivar tried to rake up communally sensitive issues in several constituencies in an attempt to polarise votes. Hindu-Muslim riots, following a pattern witnessed in Muzaffarnagar (Uttar Pradesh), Trilokpuri and Bawana, are cases in point. Days ahead of the elections, a number of BJP candidates were reported to be trying to polarise Hindu votes on communal lines in many constituencies, especially in rural Delhi and in unauthorised colonies.The BJP’s counterproductive and complacent strategies such as the last-minute para-dropping of Kiran Bedi as its chief ministerial candidate or poaching prominent leaders from other parties and giving them the ticket to contest did not go down well with party activists, resulting in dissent within the already fragmented State unit. Kiran Bedi’s naive political understanding and

her lack of ability to interact with the electorate harmed the BJP’s prospects further. The AAP’s strategic refusal to get provoked by the BJP’s slanderous remarks upset the BJP’s prospects.The electoral verdict, therefore, should be seen as a juxtaposition of a positive sentiment towards the AAP and an element of negativity towards the BJP. In 30 of the 31 seats the BJP won in 2013, the party lost by huge margins this time. One of its candidates lost by almost 50,000 votes, five of them lost by more than 40,000 votes, seven lost by more than 30,000, and another seven lost by more than 20,000 votes. That the people of Delhi rejected all forms of communal politics is mirrored in the results of Trilokpuri and Bawana. In Bawana, of the 1,88,660 votes polled, the AAP candidate, Ved Prakash, got 1,09,259 votes (almost 60 per cent of the total votes, and one of the highest votes polled by an AAP candidate), leaving the BJP candidate a distant second with 59,236 votes. Similarly, in Trilokpuri, the AAP candidate, Raju Dhingan, polled around 75,000 votes and came out as one of the top performers for the party.In most constituencies, the verdict showed the contest to be one-sided, with the people clearly in favour of Kejriwal as their Chief Minister and refusing to get trapped in the Modi parade. It also reflected a complete rejection of the Congress, whose candidates lost their deposits in more than 60 constituencies, and the BJP, which was perceived as anti-people. The AAP was clearly the better alternative because it revived a long-forgotten political language of welfare and rekindled people’s hope in the political class.Many perceived the jhadoo (broom) as the AAP’s symbolic weapon. During this correspondent’s interaction with the people of the R.K. Puram slum cluster, a resident, Ajay Kumar, said he perceived the jhadoo as a symbol of security. “[Kiran] Bedi in her speeches says that if she becomes the Chief Minister, she will turn Delhi into a world-class city where there will be no jhuggi-jhopris. What does she mean? We have seen how the Congress government razed our dwellings during the Commonwealth Games. We will not allow this to happen again. We are not living here by choice but because we have nowhere else to go,” Ajay Kumar said.In most constituencies, there was a strong class divide in party preferences. While the rich and a large section of the upper middle class favoured the BJP, the poor and the lower middle class supported the AAP. Some political observers called this election an exercise in urban, democratic class war. This analysis may not be off the mark as the traditional caste and community equations, crucial in Delhi’s elections, did not work this time. The AAP’s 54.3 per cent vote share, almost a 22-point gain since the Lok Sabha elections, shows that it received votes from all castes and communities. The dominant caste votes, which include Jats, Punjabi Khatris, Sikhs and Banias—a major chunk of the traditional vote bank of the BJP—were divided for the first time on the lines of class. Muslims saw the AAP as the most credible party to take on the BJP. According to a post-election survey by the New Delhi-based Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), almost 77 per cent of Muslims voted for the AAP. The BJP’s vote share of 32.3 per cent comprised mostly the rich and upper-middle classes and a wide network of people associated with the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh. The BJP’s vote share has always hovered around this figure except in the last Lok Sabha elections when Modi’s popularity helped its vote share rise to almost 44 per cent. The BJP won all the seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi. It was able to maintain the status quo because of a redistribution of the votes according to class considerations and not on the basis of a traditional support base.Sanjay Kumar of the CSDS validates this point: “The election data show that the lead of the AAP over the BJP among the poor, if compared with the last election, is more than 41 per cent. Despite the fact the AAP polled votes from all sections of society, this gap narrows down as you move upwards on the class ladder. The poor and the lower middle class were staunchly with the

AAP.” The Delhi elections definitely saw a paradigmatic shift in the way elections have come to be fought in the post-liberalisation era. That new-age corruption is a result of crony capitalism was something people were aware of. The AAP’s success lies in the fact that it conveyed this understanding to the people better than most other parties in recent times. Its massive victory is definitely a resurrection of the powerless in India’s polity. In this victory, the poor saw their unguarded slums winning, lowly paid workers saw their small aspirations winning, and young idealists saw their ethics winning. The AAP’s victory belongs to these hopes whom it encouraged.A new socio-economic group SHARE  ·    COMMENT   ·    PRINT   ·   T+  

The AAP’s victory is the result of a new kind of socio-economic formation where religion is

not a fault line. By MATHEW VILAYASSERIL and GIRIJA BHUSHAN NANDATHE results of the just-concluded Assembly elections in Delhi mark the completion of a process set in motion with the Anna Hazare movement of April 2011 and the subsequent formation of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in November 2012.

The AAP’s rise to power goes beyond the routine electoral victories and defeats and the mechanics of government formation. The AAP has created a new coalition of various social groups that now lays claims to political power. While the AAP in its spectacular debut in the December 2013 Assembly elections had the majority of the urban poor and Dalits (principally Valmikis) rooting for it, in 2015, the minorities also voted en bloc for the party. Muslims not only jettisoned the Congress, a party they had supported since 1998, but also refused to split their vote for Muslim-centric parties such as the Peace Party.

The voter turnout in 2015 set a new record, with 67.1 per cent of the voters exercising their franchise. The AAP had a staggering 54.3 per cent vote share, which yielded a mind-boggling 67 seats. The BJP came a distant second with a vote share of 32.8 per cent and had to be content with just three seats. The Congress, with 9.8 per cent,

failed to open its account. The scale of the victory of the AAP is testimony to the fact that it got support from across all categories: socioeconomic, religious, caste, region, gender, income and age group.

Underclass majoritarianism

The AAP’s attempt to become the “natural party of governance” has resulted in a new kind of underclass majoritarianism, a socio-economic formation where religion is not a fault line. It may not be an exaggeration to suggest that the AAP represents the rebellion of the underclass, Dalits and minorities, against the tyranny of the Bania-Brahmin-Sikh dominated Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) alliance and the Punjabi-Muslim-centric Congress. The AAP’s rise to political power has been accompanied by the emergence of a new social group that is defined by an overlap of social and economic privileges.

It is important to construe the signals of the February 2015 verdict politically and statistically. Before we look at the precise shape and nature of the new social bloc, let us first take a look at the overall picture of flow of votes between the December 2013 elections and the latest round of elections. The BJP has been able to retain the support of a large chunk of those who voted for it in 2013. In fact, the vote share of the BJP is by and large static and the party has not been able to consolidate the gains made in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.

A closer look at the change in the voting pattern between 2013 and 2015 shows that most of the gains made by the AAP came from the erstwhile Congress. The minorities (especially Muslims) voted enthusiastically for the party and did not even require the last-minute directives from the mosques and maulvis of Delhi. The average Muslim knew he had to vote AAP.

A study of the division of votes on caste and community lines underlines the contours of this new social bloc. The AAP has secured the support of every single caste, religious, language bloc. While many upper-caste Hindus may have still preferred the BJP or the Congress, the bulk of the upper-caste votes has gone to the AAP. The dominant Hindu castes such as Jats, Gujjars, Yadavs and Tyagis voted for the AAP, breaking ranks with the BJP and the Congress. The relative share of the AAP goes up as one moves down the socio-economic hierarchy from the upper castes to the other backward classes (OBCs) and Dalits. The lower the category, the higher its contribution to the AAP’s vote share. The vote share of the AAP among Dalits is overwhelming. Valmikis, a subcaste among Dalits who form the bulk of the city’s sanitation staff, were among the early supporters of the AAP. The Valmikis not only identified with the AAP election symbol (the broom), but also took ownership and were amongst the earliest foot soldiers and cadre of the party.

The AAP has had a fair share of the votes of Sikhs. The party won four of the 13 Lok Sabha seats in Punjab in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. The abandonment of the Congress by Dalits, the minorities, the urban poor and Sikhs has ensured that the once mighty Congress, which ruled Delhi uninterrupted for 15 years, has been reduced to a single-digit vote share.

If an economic profile of the AAP’s voters were to be done, it would reveal that the poorer the voters, the higher the chances that they would vote for the AAP. The AAP’s vote share among the poorest of the population is about two-thirds more than its share among the upper classes. The AAP enjoys tremendous support among the poorest voters, who live in unauthorised colonies, the resettlement colonies, slum clusters and jhuggi-jhopris (JJs). Caste hierarchy and class hierarchy have reinforced each other in contributing to the support for the AAP in the underbelly of the city. The AAP has replaced the Congress as the “big tent” under which all castes, classes, religions and regions can find space. This is not to suggest that the AAP did not get support from the middle class and the elite. Polling-booth-wise analysis suggests that people of even these sections deviated from their traditional voting patterns and voted for the AAP in a big way. Polling booths in Vasant Vihar, Greater Kailash, Defence Colony, and East of Kailash recorded votes in equal measure, if not more, for the AAP as they did for the BJP. The role of individual candidates was limited as many newly elected MLAs are rank outsiders to politics and do not have political lineage or roots.

In Delhi, before 2013, the Congress used to get the votes of the lower strata by default. The party is now a shadow of its former self, and the voters’ hostility towards the Congress is yet to dissipate. To recapture the imagination of the voter, the Congress needs to forge a new vision, overhaul the decrepit organisation and ruthlessly discard the political deadwood that substitutes as state leadership. It is a very tall order indeed, but in the realm of the possible.

The BJP made the catastrophic decision to project a discredited Kiran Bedi as its chief ministerial candidate. The Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh, in a break from the tradition of appointing chief ministerial and prime ministerial candidates from its stable or from frontal organisations like the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), committed political hara-kiri by inducting Kiran Bedi. Not only was there a wave of revulsion amongst the State leaders; the ordinary BJP worker also did not identify with the former Indian Police Service officer. For the BJP, the 2015 Delhi elections were perhaps the most internally sabotaged in recent memory. While the AAP had finalised most of the candidates in the first week of December 2014, and was able to hit the ground running, many of the BJP candidates were announced on the last day of nominations, leaving little room for campaigning.

The BJP also unleashed more than a hundred Members of Parliament, many members of the Union Cabinet, and the much-vaunted RSS election machinery, and yet came a cropper.

The vote for the AAP was a positive vote for the party, which had a positive agenda which it tried to promote through “the Delhi Dialogues”. It enlisted participation from the grass roots on issues such as water, electricity, education and health care. The AAP’s brutal majority confirms that this vote was also a negation of the toxic Hindutva ideology, which raised divisive issues like “love jehad”, “ghar wapsi”, and Godse temples. The distinct

anti–Narendra Modi sentiment was visible in almost all the constituencies and across all socio-economic groups. The elections also proved the declining power of Modi to transfer votes to hitherto unknown candidates.

 Aam Aadmi Party may venture into small States, or those in which class is the principal

driver or those witnessing rapid urbanisation or those where the BJP and the Congress are

the only players. By AJAZ ASHRAFA RADICAL leftist friend had her mobile ringing continuously as soon as it became palpable on the morning of February 10 that the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) was on its way to a landslide victory in the Delhi Assembly elections. Among her callers was an RTI (Right to Information) activist from Gujarat, who was then visiting the village of Pansina in Sundernagar district, where, he said, farmers had committed suicide over the losses incurred in growing Bt cotton.

As the AAP led in 40 seats, then crossed 50, galloping and leaping astonishingly over the 60-seat mark, Pansina began to jubilate. To the confounded RTI activist, a villager explained, “The AAP’s victory has empowered us.” Once it was announced that the AAP had bagged all but three seats in the Delhi Assembly, the radical leftist friend received a call from the communal hotspot of Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Pradesh. At the other end was a hawker, through whom she periodically gauges whether or not the decaying town is, yet again, writhing in the fever of violence. The hawker told her: “Madam, the AAP has won. It is Eid today.”

The friend engages in issues that agitate people. Perhaps that was the reason why she received calls from those whom the socio-economic system had battered and bruised and who consequently saw in the AAP’s comprehensive conquest of Delhi a glimmer of hope. But many in Delhi, including this writer, too had friends and relatives calling from different parts of India, even from abroad, breathless with excitement, trying to decode the significance of the AAP’s triumph. They all had their prescriptions for the AAP, the manner in which it should negotiate its future, as also that of the country.

In the end, these prescriptions were so many variations of just one theme—that the AAP should go national, participate in one State Assembly election after another, edge out the existing political parties from their turfs, and become the new national alternative to both the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress in the 2019 general election. On listening to this babble, you would think AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal, Hamlet-like, must be muttering: To go national or not, that is the question.

It speaks of the immense popular pressure that those who reside outside Delhi, as much victims of a venal, insensitive system as the capital’s denizens, have brought to bear upon the AAP. Indeed, to AAP leaders lolling around in the courtyard of its North Avenue office, basking in the sun and glory of victory the day following the announcement of results, the one question almost all journalists tossed at them was: Is there a plan to go national? Which State will the AAP now turn its gaze on? Their answer was almost always the predictable: “The party will take the decision on this issue.”

This display of caution is because the AAP’s overweening ambition badly burnt the party only a year ago. It quit the Delhi government, fielded over 400 candidates in the Lok Sabha constituencies in 2014, and pitted Kejriwal against Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Varanasi. The AAP’s only ostensible takeaway from the Lok Sabha elections was to earn the sobriquet of “zamanat zabt party”, or the party which forfeited its security deposits. Crushed between its own ambitions and the tsunami wave Modi triggered, the AAP nearly unravelled, prompting its leaders to return to the drawing board and prepare afresh a blueprint to reclaim its bastion of Delhi. It has—and how!

Yet the fervour the AAP has generated among the people through its spectacular performance in the Delhi Assembly election only makes it see the ghost of 2014 now. Nothing is more revealing of the AAP’s new mindset than what happened on February 10. As it sewed up the 67 seats in its kitty, a former Prime Minister of a neighbouring country called Kejriwal’s office, wishing to congratulate him. No, said the AAP leader, he was not going to take the call.

No hubris this. Really, have you ever heard of Prime Ministers of foreign countries congratulating an Indian Chief Minister on winning a State election? This episode signified that Kejriwal was not willing to get projected, even willy-nilly, as a national alternative, a long-term challenger to Modi. Such a projection would have been inevitable as the former Prime Minister too had called Modi that day last summer when he was swept to power.

This episode is a testament to the new awareness in the AAP that it is a party confined to Delhi and that it will not become blind to this reality because of popular expectations or media buzz. This in itself raises the important question: Among all the State-based parties, why is the AAP expected to grow wings, fly out of its local nest, and, to use the avian analogy, lay eggs all around the country?

For one, most State-based parties opted for either a regional or a caste identity. Those consciously regional could not, by definition, have an appeal beyond the linguistic group they represented. In fact, their rise was predicated on being local, in opposition to the parties considered national—primarily the Congress earlier, but increasingly now the BJP—and seeking to establish the dominance of national culture, however defined. No wonder the periodic attempts of regional outfits, such as that of Mamata Banerjee more recently, came a cropper.

The other group of State-based parties sought to build a multi-caste solidarity, particularly of subaltern social groups, but their expansion was circumscribed because their leaders relied primarily on the caste to which they belonged. This earned them the hostility not only of upper castes but also those groups placed more or less on the same step of the Hindu social ladder.

Also, each of these emerging groups had their own leaders in different States. Think Mulayam Singh Yadav and Lalu Prasad, both spending much of their political careers encroaching upon each other’s area of influence and failing ignobly. Mayawati and her Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) did manage to expand outside Uttar Pradesh to a degree, relying on the presence of Dalits in substantial numbers countrywide. But she failed to find leaders who could be the party’s face in different States, and was too engaged in the political battles of Uttar Pradesh to spare the time and energy required to have a national presence of some import. Now, even the BSP’s turf in Uttar Pradesh is under pressure.

By contrast, the AAP was born in the crucible of a movement which touched upon the themes of corruption, crony capitalism, the abject failure of the system to work for the disempowered, and the pressing need for a new political culture. These issues have a national resonance beyond the class-caste divide but perhaps having a greater relevance for urban India than rural Bharat. Then again, the movement against corruption was arrayed against the Union government of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA). National leaders and Union Ministers spoke against the movement’s leaders, raising the stature of the movement’s leaders and turning them into household names countrywide.

The AAP perceived the Delhi Assembly election of 2013 as an opportunity to test the political waters. Delhi was chosen for this experiment not only because it had been the hub of the anti-corruption movement but also because class more than caste is the principal driver of the city’s politics. For sure, it is more amenable to the pursuit of cross-sectoral vocabulary, which defines the AAP’s language.

No less an important factor was Delhi being the hub of media and politics. Even a crime in Delhi—the ghastly rape of the physiotherapist in December 2012 is an example—gets magnified. Could this not also happen for the AAP’s brand of politics? There was a veritable preset script for the AAP’s quest for power. Kejriwal had hoped to win at least a majority and introduce policies to showcase a style of governance remarkably different from that of other mainstream political parties. There had been a plan to convene the Assembly in the Ramlila Maidan to pass the Jan Lokpal Bill, to convey to the people the true meaning of representative democracy. Delhi was supposed to be the AAP’s diving board to plunge into national politics.

The AAP dived and, in the manner of an inexperienced swimmer, was hurt grievously.

Five lessons

There were five lessons it drew from its Lok Sabha debacle. It realised it was impossible to convert goodwill into votes without an organisational structure comprising a network of committees from the constituency to ward to booth levels. This is the structure most political parties possess, considered vital to ensure that their sympathisers cast their votes and to counter the possibility of rigging.

Second, the AAP realised that though Kejriwal is its magnet to pull in votes, his presence can yield dividends only if his efforts are augmented by having local faces with whom people can identify. In other words, every State must have its own little Kejriwal. Third, the AAP must have a State-level campaign team possessing a unity of purpose, identifying and raising issues people consider important, and boasting the capacity to raise finances.

Four, the AAP came around to accepting the reality of the Indian democratic polity. Regardless of its self-avowed idealism, the AAP had to accept that electoral contests are a messy battle. Money and muscle power cannot be wished away, particularly outside Delhi, where the quest for power can often become a violent zero-sum game. In what way could the AAP without comprising its ideal of clean politics neutralise the advantages of money and muscle power other parties deploy?

Five, and more importantly, the AAP realised through its 49-day rule in 2014 that the surest, and quickest, way of winning the enduring support of people is through a style of governance which has a significant impact. Undoubtedly, during its short stint, the lower classes experienced a palpable relief from petty corruption and the civilised behaviour of the police. Their power and water bills were not as severe a burden as before. The decision to audit power distribution companies conveyed that the most powerful corporate could not enjoy lavish profits at the expense of the common person.

For all these reasons, the AAP government-II in Delhi will do well to concentrate on executing its agenda effectively and visibly. It is almost certain that the underclasses will be its focus, conscious as the party is that their support provided it a 3 per cent increase in its vote share despite the Modi wave inundating large parts of north India during the 2014 general election. It knows the middle class is notoriously fickle in its political loyalty. Apart from sweeping away corruption and halving water and power rates, the AAP is expected to opt for a more robust government participation in the educational and health sectors.

Once these policies are executed, the AAP will then turn its gaze to other States, hoping its governance in Delhi would have inspired their people to repose faith in it. This means the AAP is very unlikely to participate in the elections due in Bihar this year. It simply does not have the time to build the organisational structure it thinks is vital to flourish. No longer for Kejriwal the tag of the also-ran; he is acutely aware that every ignoble defeat becomes a deadly blow to the aspirations of a political fledgling that the AAP still is.

Next stop Punjab?

It is in Punjab the AAP will most likely take its first step to go national. For one, the State Assembly election there is due in two years, providing it the time to build an organisational structure there. Two, it polled nearly 25 per cent of the votes in the 2014 Lok Sabha election there—a foundation firm enough to build a structure upon. Three, there is a popular disenchantment against all the three parties—the Akali Dal, the Congress and the BJP.

Four, the politics of denial of privileges is not as sharp in Punjab as it is in, say, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. In this sense, the political scientist Harish Puri, in conversation with this writer, said Punjab mimicked Delhi’s political-scape. For instance, the Dalits there are assertive, this consciousness being an outcome of migration abroad

where they amassed wealth. They had consolidated behind Kanshiram earlier, but because of his inactivity owing to ill health and then death, their political unity was splintered three ways. They could become the impulse behind the AAP in Punjab, the sign of which was evident in the last Lok Sabha elections.

Five, Punjab is reeling under drug and alcohol abuse. Both the Akali Dal and the Congress are perceived to be indifferent to the drug addiction that has become pandemic. Puri said, “For 30-40 years, both the Congress and the Akali Dal have been suppliers of drugs.” Quite encouragingly, women are raging against the mushrooming of liquor outlets in villages, blaming alcoholism for the devastation of their families. They could, as they did in Haryana years ago, become the nucleus of a socio-political movement.

The AAP is acutely conscious of this reality in Punjab. Apart from the painstaking process of building an organisational structure, it has to decide who in Punjab ought to be its face. Its best option is to look for a non-Jat, ideally a Dalit, woman to lead the party there. This is because the politics of Punjab has been Jat Sikh-centric, regardless of whichever party is in power.

Obviously, in the attempt to fan out in Punjab, as also in other States, the AAP will find its professed values a shackle. It insists on adhering to stringent norms in the selection of candidates despite a little dilution in Delhi this time round. It will not enter into alliances with other political parties because it would compromise its promise of providing alternative politics.

What precisely is the definition of alternative politics? For the AAP at least, it means providing affordable politics—that is, fighting elections on a small budget—to provide clean governance. This could well mean the AAP turning to States sharing one or two of the traits of Delhi—either venture into small States, or those in which class is the principal driver or those witnessing rapid urbanisation, or those where the BJP and the Congress are the only players.

This is why all those rooting for the AAP outside Delhi must recalibrate their hopes, for the party and its leaders have already scaled down their ambitions, realising that even to achieve them they need a time frame larger than what people have in mind.

Ajaz Ashraf is a journalist from Delhi. His novel The Hour Before Dawn, published by HarperCollins, is available in bookstores.