february 14, 2015

A Capital Battle
Can the massive victory of the Aam Aadmi Party in Delhi lead to a new national politics?

he scale of the victory of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in

the Delhi assembly elections makes objective analysis
somewhat difficult, since a party registering a 55% vote
share and winning all but three seats in the state legislature
lends itself to the sort of exaggerated Americanisms which
journalists happily use for lesser events.
Delhi is a state without full powers and yet, this citystate is a
bellwether for politics in India. It was for this reason that Prime
Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)
invested so much political (and actual) capital into this battle.
That every trick of the trade, which ensured their victory in the
general elections of May 2014, was tried and yet the people of
Delhi voted so decisively against them is perhaps the biggest
lesson of the result. The upswing for AAP was visible for some
weeks prior to the voting, but it seems that in the days leading
up to the voting there was a massive consolidation for AAP.
Much has already been written about the solid base of AAP
among the working classes and poor of Delhi, how these formed
a core which has remained with the party over three elections
from December 2013 to May 2014 and now to February 2015,
and how other sections from the middle and even the uppermiddle classes joined. Also significant in ensuring this victory
has been the dialogue that AAP initiated with the citizens of
Delhi over the past many months and its constant conversations at
the level of the mohalla. It is now clear that even if there was a
consolidation of support for AAP among the poor and the lowermiddle class, among the Dalits and Muslims, support also came
to them cutting across class, caste, regional and religious lines.
Equally important, perhaps, has been the vote which has come
to AAP in anger at the BJP.
Another way to look at the numbers is that in nine months
between the Lok Sabha elections and last weeks the BJP lost 57
constituencies; in May 2014 it had won 60 of the 70 assembly
segments. Whichever way one looks at this, and whatever caveats
one puts in place, it is an indicator that for a growing number of
people the promises and politics that built up the Modi wave of
last summer are now becoming a source of anger and frustration.
It is also an indicator that some part of the electoral successes
that have been credited to Modi and the BJP President Amit
Shah in the recent state assembly polls may have been due to the
absence of a political opposition which people could trust.
Economic & Political Weekly

EPW

february 14, 2015

vol l no 7

In the din of AAPs astonishing victory and the decimation of

the BJP, we can be forgiven for overlooking the minor matter of
the obliteration of the Congress. Its shrinking number of supporters deserted the party en masse in favour of AAP. But a
mechanistic reading of AAPs win as an outcome of this switch
(as indeed favoured by apologists for the BJP) is blind to the fact
that these voters in Delhi chose to go, again en masse, with AAP
rather than the BJP which seemed to have conquered all before
it since May 2014.
Modis spectacular rise and AAPs equally spectacular victory in
Delhi are perhaps grounded in the same soil the substantial
transformation of Indias political economy, of its society and of
its older mentalities. A new citizenry is taking shape in front of
our eyes and most of us are unable to identify its true contours.
Modi managed to seduce them for his reactionary agenda
through a public relations exercise, the likes of which India had
never seen. AAP has managed to win Delhi and electrify politics
all over the country by building a progressive politics which
addresses the concerns of this new citizenry.
So is this the beginning of the end of the Narendra Modi
effect on elections? It is surely too early and the Delhi poll too
small to make any definitive statements. What it does indicate is
that the Achilles heel of the phenomenon called Modi may have
been exposed. However, it will be difficult for at least two reasons for AAP to replicate its Delhi success elsewhere.
One, the Delhi triumph emerged from intensive and sustained grass-roots work of a sort which has disappeared in India
today. Hundreds of young people, professionals, retired employees and informal sector workers came out to give time and money to AAP for its campaign. Such popular upsurges are almost
always predicated on a local politics which addresses very
grounded demands, like what AAPs dialogues and manifesto
did for Delhi. It will be a huge challenge to replicate such a
politics in the hundreds of districts and cities and towns all over
India. If anyone can do it, maybe it is AAP. But the odds are
huge, to say the least.
The second reason why it will be difficult to replicate Delhi in
other parts of India is that the political and ideological ammunition
of Indias older political parties all seem to have become damp.
The left parties were well known for a dedicated cadre, much
like AAPs volunteers, who would champion peoples causes but
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EDITORIALS

they now appear bereft of such a cadre. The various offshoots

of the socialist Janata parties remain prisoners of caste
mobilisations which cannot replicate, by definition, AAPs crosssegment consolidation, and the Congress remains rudderless as
ever. It needs to be remembered that a third of Delhis electorate
has remained with the BJP, and AAPs victory has not dented this
traditional support.

Thus, it seems that other political formations cannot replicate

the AAP formula and AAP still remains a weak force outside
of Delhi (and Punjab). Whether it can become a national alternative ahead of 2019 is anyones guess. India and its people are
changing faster than anyone can comprehend. The coming few
years promise to be a journey of self-discovery for Indias people
and the politics they give themselves.

february 14, 2015

vol l no 7

EPW

Economic & Political Weekly