Soft pedaling on critical issues may affect the AAP.
By Krishnakumar S.
NEW DELHI: The entry of the recently floated political party, Aam Admi Party (AAP), into the electoral scene in Delhi has upset the calculations of the Congress and the BJP of sharing the electoral fortunes between themselves.
Exit polls by different agencies have given a reasonable number of seats to the civil rights organization-turned political party, led by the Magsaysay award winner, Arvind Kejriwal, who was part of the Right to Information movement, though none of them project seats for the AAP to such an extent as to catapult them to be in the reins of powers in Edwin Lutyens’ Delhi.
The AAP, which gained currency in the state with the Lok Pal agitation, has consolidated and created a niche for itself through a series of agitations: from protesting against the rape of a young woman on a bus in Delhi last December, to the bijli satyagraha against inflated power bills, and raising their voice against real estate scandals.
Even while the BJP did not find journalistic revelations of the nexus between the politicians and the realty groups in the NCR region worth pointing fingers against the residents of 10 Janpath, it was Kejriwal and his associates who pounced on the opportunity to transform the same into a hot button issue.
The mainstream consensus on maintaining silence on issues like corruption and the disdainful attitude which people have towards political parties, making them lethargic to the electoral process, has resulted in political vacuum in the city, which has given ample space for this rights-based libertarian party to step into.
Over the decades, while the Jan Sangh-inspired BJP has been receiving its support from the traders as well as the middle classes, the party which had unraveled the economic reform project in the country in the early 1990s, has been counting for its support paradoxically from the jhuggi (slum) dwellers, the rickshaw-auto drivers, the Dalits, as well as the minorities.
The condescending patronage-clientele politics which was successfully crafted by the triad of Congress leaders, Sajjan Kumar (amidst the jhuggi dwellers), Jagdish Tytler (amidst the traders) as well as HKL Bhagat (amidst the rickshaw pullers) had a perceptible impact on the electoral fortunes of the Congress. No wonder, over the years, the Congress had transformed itself to be a poor man’s party, fine tuning the same with community equations in the state.
But in the aftermath of the 1984 Sikh riots, the limitations of this patronage-clientele model of politics came to haunt the Congress. These big names of the Congress have fast turned out to be liabilities. Even as the patronage-clientele system turned out to be weak, with growth picking up in the NCR region, the mascot of cosmopolitan sophistication offered by Sheila Dikshit helped Congress to endear itself to a section of the middle class and ride to power 15 years back, against a fragmented BJP.
Over the decade, the rights-based legislations introduced by the Congress has ended up tarnishing its own image in various corruption scandals, not to speak of its inability to rise up to the aspirations of the deprived groups, who now found a great new world in the politics around rights discourse. Over the years, they refused to continue as mere “beneficiaries”, but wanted to have larger say. It is this space which was occupied by the NGO-civil rights agencies in the state.
The upper hand which the BJP had in the city politics started waning with the end of the Khurana-Sahani era. Notwithstanding its advocacy of the Hindu right, BJP’s claim of moral authority over the city was that they fought the Emergency and rose up to protect the victims of the 1984 riots.
But, over the last three decades, they have no claim over having led any massive movement they have undertaken or sacrifices they have made to claim political legitimacy. Moreover, in the course of their taste with power, the khakhi clad at Jhandewalan were proving to be no different from their counterparts of 24 Akbar Road, with respect to the issue of corruption.
It is into this political vacuum of the collapse of the patronage-clientele politics of the Congress and the downfall of the resistance politics of the BJP that the AAP has made serious inroads.
Irrespective of whether they gain electorally or not, the serious inroads which they have made through the series of agitations, thus endearing them to the middle classes and, and at the same time taking up issues of the rights and aspirations of the urban unskilled workers, petty traders as well as the slum residents, who have been spectators of the growth in the city, the AAP has definitely altered the algebra and grammar of Delhi politics, which till sometime back was thought unthinkable. Given the background of at least some of their candidates announced, to begin with, it can be said that AAP has dismantled the popular belief in Delhi polity of regarding asset-worthiness as a prerequisite for candidature.
But the tight-lipped responses of the AAP towards unauthorized colonies, or on whether they would prefer NaMo over RaGa as the next PM, as well over various contentious political and policy issues seems to be very strategic. Possibly, in their early days in electoral politics, they do not want to repel a plausible voter. Even as he vouches to bring Robert Vadra to justice on the DLF case, is Kejriwal soft pedaling on the BJP? In the name of taking dynastic politics by horn, is he trying to shirk away from the politics of secularism?
Whether in power or not, will they take on the illegal building activities in Delhi? Or, will they after tall claims of probity before the law of the land, legalize and legitimize the illegal colonies? Restoring the law of land in Delhi, where every transaction is quasi-illegal, is indeed going to be a Herculean task.
Won’t such sort of issues reduce it to another formation which would be preserving vested interests rather than fighting them? As they enter into the din of electoral consensus on a number of issues, it is to be seen as to how far they would be moving away from their avowed determination to uproot corruption from the society. Only time would say as to whether Kejriwal’s broom would be able to sweep away corruption, or would get infested with the dirt of the same. (Global India Newswire)
(Krishnakumar S teaches economics at Sri Venkateswara College, University of Delhi)