MCD election results 2017: Why Modi and BJP's strategy of fuelling nationalism worked
Did Indian nationalism just win the Delhi municipal body polls? Are soldiers at the border the burning issue for the capital's filth-ridden bylanes? Will the garbage be picked up by the nationalist gau rakshaks? Will Modi's Delhi dream be fulfilled now, three years after the man came to power in the Centre and four years since he's been around as a political star of national credentials?
These are the questions that observers and analysts, journalists and news anchors are asking today, as the incumbent BJP sweeps the MCD elections. Two terms notwithstanding, the dirty streets and open drains aside, irrespective of the bouts of dengue, Delhiites cannot get enough of the BJP.
Counting is still on, but clear leads have been established. BJP is ahead in 180 wards out of 270. AAP is a distant second, having bagged only 45 wards. Congress is a sad third, and is down to 35 seats from 77 it won in the 2012 MCD polls.
The saffron party that fought under the redoubtable Modi-Shah rubric, with the face of councillor Manoj Tiwari surgically inserted into the giant campaign posters, is ahead in all three MCDs - North, South and East Delhi.
It seems nationalism has won the day for the BJP, and the party is paying its dues by observing a "muted" celebration, in memory of the 26 jawans of the CRPF who were killed in Sukma on April 24.
Manoj Tiwari and other leaders of the BJP have said that they are too sad to celebrate their victory, even though it's their party in the government that has been sitting on providing the CRPF with proper battle gears to fight the Naxals.
That Naxals in Chhattisgarh are in fact a poll issue for the civic body elections in Delhi is startling. But it seems anything that PM Modi touches gives him electoral victory - whether it's UP Assembly, or Delhi municipal corporations.
Moreover, it seems demonetisation, long ATM queues, cash crunch, garbage and filth on the streets of Delhi, cow vigilantism incident in Kalkaji, South Delhi, and a string of other embarrassing events have had zero dent on PM Modi's shining image. For Delhiites, the BJP face of MCD elections, quite frankly was irrelevant, as long as it came second to Narendra Modi.
However, the question we must ask is this: Is Delhi fed up of the AAP-versus-BJP tussle, which is a three-year-long proxy battle between Modi and Kejriwal. The AAP leader had been crying hoarse over faulty EVMs, Delhi being a bastion of communicable diseases like dengue, malaria, etc, and that the voters of Delhi should use discretion and reflect on the issues before they press the poll button on April 23.
Did Delhi just vote to avoid further tussle, so that the BJP has no more excuses left to shirk work?
It's interesting that PM Modi, who is in the national capital, has asked the winning BJP candidates to keep it low-key today, while party national president Amit Shah is in Bengal to campaign against TMC's corruption and ponzi schemes.
It's obvious that the Delhi civic body polls, though significant symbolically, are only a minor aspect of BJP's gargantuan ambition to paint the country in the political colours of saffron.
Watch: