Delhi election verdict is a ‘referendum’ on Kejriwal’s development & not against Modi

The results are a reflection of not only the maturity of Delhi voters — who rejected BJP's polarisation — but also how local issues matter in assembly polls.

Arvind Kejriwal and his wife Sunita greet AAP supporters at party headquarters in Delhi | Photo: Praveen Jain | ThePrint

New Delhi: Riding on Arvind Kejriwal’s personality and development plank, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) swept to power in Delhi Tuesday with an overwhelming majority.

According to Election Commission data as of 8.30 pm, the AAP has won 55 of the 70 assembly seats and is leading in another 7.

Kejriwal won from New Delhi seat by over 21,000 votes, defeating BJP’s Sunil Yadav.

The BJP, which put up a valiant fight to dislodge the AAP government, has won seven seats and is leading in one more.

Prominent AAP faces, including Raghav Chaddha, Manish Sisodia and Atishi, who was one of the chief architects of Delhi’s education reforms, won and are likely to find a place in the AAP government’s cabinet.

Although the BJP’s seats (both winning and leading) went up from three in 2015 to eight this time, the party’s vote share increased from 32.3 per cent in 2015 to 38.45 per cent.

The AAP’s vote share decreased marginally — from 54.3 per cent in 2015 to 53.65 per cent, according to the EC website as of 8.30 pm.

The BJP’s poor show brought to the fore that the high-octane campaign it unleashed in the capital — roping in 11 BJP chief ministers and almost all its Union Cabinet ministers — failed to sway Delhi’s voters.

The results, political analysts said, are a reflection of not only the maturity of Delhi voters — who rejected BJP’s politics of polarisation — but also how local issues matter in assembly elections.

Shaheen Bagh effect

The election result shows that BJP’s polarising campaign built around the anti-CAA protests at Shaheen Bagh — where protesters, mostly Muslim women, have been demonstrating for over 50 days now — did not find resonance with the voters.

The BJP, just 10 days before the 8 February elections, made Shaheen Bagh its main poll plank.

This apart, all the BJP heavyweights, who campaigned for the elections, only talked about national issues — completely sidelining local matters.

Starting from Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Union Home Minister Amit Mishra and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath — all of them raised national issues, be it NRC, the new citizenship law, scrapping of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir and the Ram temple in Ayodhya.

The results are an indication that the BJP’s strategy backfired big time.

AAP’s Amanatullah Khan won by over 70,000 votes against BJP’s Braham Singh in Okhla seat — Shaheen Bagh and Jamia Nagar fall in this constituency. It’s the highest margin by any candidate so far today.

The AAP has won or is leading in all the five seats where the Muslim population is over 50 per cent.

“Kejriwal has shown that if the local government has worked for development and improving the life of the citizenry, voters will go for it over other emotive issues. This is the model that (West Bengal CM) Mamata Banerjee, (Odisha CM) Naveen Patnaik, (Telangana CM) K. Chandrashekhar Rao adopted in their respective states and won,” said Gilles Verniers, assistant professor of political science at Ashoka University and co-director of the Trivedi Centre for Political Data.

Praveen Rai, political analyst with the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) said the BJP knew they can’t counter AAP on its work, so they started talking about Shaheen Bagh.

Kejriwal makeover aided by Prashant Kishor

The AAP campaign, which had revolved around Arvind Kejriwal and his model of good governance and development, especially the freebies, got a huge fillip after election strategist Prashant Kishor’s I-PAC was roped in.

Kishor designed AAP’s campaign, which kept far away from negative issues. He also ensured that Kejriwal and his party leaders consciously avoided getting drawn into a debate on Shaheen Bagh protests.

The big draw, of course, was the slew of pro-people measures of the Kejriwal government.

Be it free power for those consuming up to 200 units, 50 per cent subsidised power for consumption between 200 and 400 units, free water up to 20,000 litres a month, providing free bus rides for women, setting up Wi-Fi points and ‘mohalla clinics’ — all these found an immediate connect with the middle and lower-middle class voters.

Kejriwal had also gone on an overdrive to ensure an image makeover — from an anti-corruption activist who preferred ‘anarchism’ even after becoming the chief minister into a leader and an effective and able administrator.

The AAP chief was seen resorting to a time-tested political strategy — create a personality cult that would gloss over all the failures in governance and politics over the past five years.

From video conferences, mobile apps, metro stations, auto stands to hoardings on roads or full-page newspaper advertisements and even in your drawing rooms (WelcomeKejriwal.In), Kejriwal’s face was all over Delhi so that he could effectively highlight his government’s achievements.

“The results are a referendum on Kejriwal’s model of development rather than Modi’s failure. The BJP won the 2019 Lok Sabha results, which shows how voters prefer Modi for the Centre, but local leaders, in this case Kejriwal, for assembly elections,” said political analyst Rai.

Results show Amit Shah’s micromanagement backfired  

More than PM Modi, political analysts say the Delhi results are a reflection on how Amit Shah’s strategy failed to bear results. And how, the party, which won in Delhi last time in 1993, still has a long way to go.

Although the party made Modi the face of the election, Shah took the lead from the word go. In Delhi, they said, it was a contest between Kejriwal and Shah, instead of Modi.

BJP sources, however, refute that Modi was in the background in the Delhi campaign.

“He was very much in the forefront. He held three rallies, including the one before the actual campaigning took off where he announced his government’s decision to regularise 1,731 unauthorised colonies in the city-state,” said a BJP leader, who did not want to be named.

But the decision to regularise unauthorised colonies just ahead of the elections did not seem to have worked. “People understood that its a poll gimmick,” Verniers said.

According to Rai, Delhi is another state where Modi’s charisma did not work in an assembly election.

“But more than a statement against Modi, the results are a question mark on the ability of Shah as a vote-catcher. As an organisational man, Shah might have played a critical role but not as a poll strategist,” he said.

Rai added it is time for the BJP to do a rethink on its strategy of using Modi’s charisma and polarising issues to get votes.

Delhi will be the sixth state after Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Jharkhand where the BJP couldn’t come to power.

Complete decimation of Congress

Last but not the least, the Delhi elections once again brought to the fore the complete irrelevance of the Congress.

The party, which ruled the capital for 15 years under late leader Sheila Dikshit, drew a blank. In 2015 elections too, the party failed to open its account.