AAP represents the new face of India’s politics
By Rajiv Theodore
NEW DELHI: The Indian National Congress (INC), one of the oldest and largest political parties in the world and which ruled India for most of the 66-years since gaining independence from British rule, has been hurt like never before as the verdict of the assembly elections in the country revealed this Sunday.
Wracked by a series of charges of massive corruptions and scams with widespread poor governance in Congress ruled states just at a time when the national elections is looming on the horizon in May next year, the results of the these assembly polls could not have come at a worse time for the party. With record turnouts in the number of people voting, the message is clear — the electorate is simply sick and tired of misrule by a stone deaf Congress, of the chasm between the rulers and the ruled.
India’s number two party in size and numbers, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), took clear advantage of the situation and routed the Congress in Delhi, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhatisgarh. Maverick corruption crusaders and rank debutants Aam Aadmi Party (AAM) stunned Delhi winning 28 out of the total 70 seats. The BJP won 31 seats and a decimated Congress won just 8 seats, its lowest total ever. Now, the BJP is mulling over setting up a state government in Delhi without any horse trading.
The assembly elections, especially in the fight for the national capital city, saw the audacity of hope and conviction winning in style manifested in the AAP, spearheaded by an engineer-bureaucrat turned politician whose anti-corruption campaigns call for clean governance set fire to the imagination of a wide spectrum of masses, especially the young and the restless.
In a Goliath-like slaying, AAP’s founder Arvind Kejriwal whipped entrenched veteran Chief Minister of 15 years, Sheila Dixit, by 22,000 votes in the national capital. The defeat of Dixit in fact symbolized people’s ire and a growing frustration over skyrocketing prices, rising utility bills and endemic corruption, to name a few, which had pervaded all levels of public and private life.
In Rajasthan, Vasundhara Raje spearheaded the saffron surge, ousting the Congress which registered its worst-ever performance. BJP got 162 seats, its highest ever tally, in the 200-member assembly, leaving Congress with only 21.
In Madhya Pradesh, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan of the BJP overcame anti-incumbency on the back of his popularity and people friendly policies of his government and returned to power. The BJP in MP won 165 seats in the 230-member assembly, with the Congress winning 58.
Chief Minister Raman Singh of Chhatisgarh also managed to retain his state. The BJP crossed the majority mark of 45 in the 90-member assembly. It won 49 seats, with the Congress winning 39. It was a hat-trick for Singh.
In what could be seen as hardly a relief, the ruling Congress seems set to retain power for the second consecutive term in Mizoram, with results still to be completed, on Monday.
Having tasted blood, the BJP and the new kid on the block AAP are bracing up for the final assault to rule the center with the national elections being just months away. The impact of these regional polls will in all probability be a mirror image of the lineup of the victors and the vanquished that would be thrown up during the main elections in just another four months.
These elections also threw up some key reminders and warnings to the age-old political parties, who were basking in their near invincible power equations, and have been thrown off-guard. Never underestimate your adversary.
For example, Delhi’s Sheila Dixit had always rubbished the AAP’s claim to come out a winner and was arrogant enough to acknowledge the party as any kind of threat. The Assembly elections is a reminder to any party that they should not give empty promises to the people. Parties need to address all, especially the young, who this time voted in huge numbers. The voters clamored for safe cities, work and freedom of choices, after an epidemic of rapes and violence had rocked India. These elections are a grim reminder that it is not the popular public face that brings in votes but the action behind them that swings voters.
The results also bring to the fore the weakness of the Congress, inherent and otherwise. If India’s grand old party can lose Delhi, it could invariably lose India.
The decision making process which had been wielded for so long by a political elite from parties that were once the first movers in this raucous nation of 1.23 billion has now shifted to the people who have been for so long muted because of their frustrating lack of choices.
And finally the rise and rise of the AAP, or the common man’s party, is what most voters want. Such a fantasy is now fast transforming into a reality and should finally ensure that the baton from the rulers must pass to a much wider spectrum of people who had been groaning under pressures of corruption and bad governance silently.
Just see the relevance of what Mahatma Gandhi had to say of the Congress party, way back in 1942: “The Congress will cease to be popular if it cannot deserve popularity in times of stress, if it cannot provide work for the workless and hungry, if it cannot protect the people from depredations or teach them how to face them, if it cannot help them in the face of danger, it will lose its prestige and popularity.â€