The election season of the new calendar year 2025 is well underway in the national capital (Delhi). The Aam Aadmi Party, with its dual model of Government, where a pseudo-chief Minister and the National Convenor trade roles as per their political convenience is facing its biggest challenge.
AAP’s Cuel Joke
The Delhi Elections are a high-stakes battle for the incumbent party, given that Arvind Kejriwal chose to resign only before the elections and not when he was arrested before the Lok Sabha polls. Atishi Marlena taking over as the Chief Minister was a cruel joke inflicted on the people of Delhi, who had twice rewarded the party with a decisive mandate.
The challenge to the AAP comes from the Bharatiya Janata Party. In the recent Lok Sabha polls, BJP defeated the alliance of Congress and AAP, across all seven seats. However, in the Delhi Assembly Elections, the BJP is caught in the ‘trap of thirty’.
Barring 1993, when the BJP’s vote share exceeded 40 per cent, making them the winner, the BJP has stayed around the 30-odd per cent mark for the next six elections, until 2020. Interestingly, BJP was the only party to register an uptick in their vote share of around six percentage points in 2020, capturing more than 38 per cent of vote share.
Voters on Tenterhooks
Much of the rise of AAP in the decade gone by can be attributed to the political decimation of Congress. In the Centre, the Congress is a pale shadow of its pre-2014 era, but in Delhi, it is a distant memory, lost to time and irrelevance.
The last time Congress registered a respectable vote share in Delhi was in 2008, when they had over 40 per cent vote share and the win. In 2013, it declined to 15 per cent, to 9.7 per cent in 2015, and to 4.26 per cent in 2020. Much of the vote share has shifted to the AAP, lock, stock and barrel. This is where the decision of the AAP and Congress to come together in 2024 in Delhi was a bit of surprise for all. Why would the decade-old incumbent give another lease of life to the party it owes its existence to. Beyond the theatrics of television, is Kejriwal sensing the shift away from the AAP on the ground?
The people of Delhi deserve a Chief Minister who they can hold accountable. Sensing anti-incumbency, Kejriwal resigned merely six months before the assembly elections, but that does not negate the decade of misgovernance under the party
Beyond the scripted feud playing out between the Congress and the AAP on television, another possibility must be factored in. As per media reports, Congress is consolidating the minority vote share, given the aspirant list that is surfacing from the Okhla seat. Meanwhile, Kejriwal is going on a temple run, promising a monthly allowance to priests. There are two ways to look at these developments. One, Congress wishes to make a comeback in Delhi and wants to begin with their comfort zone, its minority vote. However, that would leave Kejriwal in fix, for even a ten per cent vote share of the Congress could derail AAP’s prospects.
Therefore, the second, and more probable scenario is that Congress and AAP are preparing for a post-poll alliance, if required. One focuses on consolidating the minority vote, while the other breaks up the majority vote, thereby restricting the BJP in its ‘trap of thirty’. If this happens, then the election of 2024 may be a repeat telecast of the 2013 elections.
The other important questions pertain to the people of Delhi, for it remains unclear who they are voting for regarding the AAP. The Supreme Court restrictions on Arvind Kejriwal, irrespective of the election results, are not going away. Kejriwal was not allowed to visit the Office of the Chief Minister or the Delhi Secretariat. This restriction was part of the conditions set when he was granted interim bail by the Supreme Court in May 2024.
Therefore, can Kejriwal be elected to the post of the Chief Minister without the acquittal? And if not Kejriwal, will the temporary Chief Minister be deployed if AAP wins, for the dual model of Government to continue? AAP may want to confuse Delhi’s mandate for a judicial conclusion, but the legalities work differently. The people of Delhi deserve better, and more importantly, they deserve a Chief Minister who they can hold accountable. Sensing anti-incumbency, Kejriwal resigned merely six months before the assembly elections, but that does not negate the decade of misgovernance under the party.
From the pandemic to fiscal chaos, the party has held the development of Delhi, hostage to a spree of advertising campaigns that are only focused on one individual. The memories of a manufactured hysteria around medical oxygen shortage, the live-streaming of a meeting of the Chief Ministers with the Prime Minister, the campaign against vaccine exports, and the decision to side with the protesters in both Shaheen Bagh and Singhu have only disrupted Delhi.
This decade-old circus in Delhi must come to an end. Another five years of a Chief Minister who is in perpetual complain mode, in conflict with the Centre, and unwilling to give up his activism does not bode well for the people of Delhi. Freebies are not a model of governance, and free water and electricity will only add to the fiscal stress on the state’s finances.
Discarding the short-term theatrics, the voters must factor in their long-term interests, and this is where the campaign of the BJP must be focused.
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