What BJP must learn from AAP

The results of the Delhi Assembly election confirm many readings of the domestic political situation and give indications of what lies ahead. The ruling party at the Centre should plan an indepth review of its strategy and image. Delhi shows a victory of pro-people politics against political elitism and a clear wresting of the anti-corruption platform by the AAP from the BJP.

The interregnum, since the last Lok Sabha election, gave a breather to the AAP that was long enough for it to erase the negative labels of the short regime of Arvind Kejriwal and to generate a degree of anti-incumbency against the BJP in Delhi – on account of the issues of both safety and quality of public services.

It is true that PM Narendra Modi made a huge investment in establishing a relationship with the world outside – and this has no doubt yielded enormous dividends. However governance within – as the nation’s capital mirrors – remains subdued. In a situation where the field became entirely available to the AAP it is not without significance for the ruling party at the Centre that its hold on committed voters remained somewhat intact. However, the projection of a new face in the election proved counterproductive in terms of the party’s internal dynamics.

Connectivity

The AAP seemed to get the benefit of India's "demographic dividend" through the intellectual strength of the young that the party was able to muster in this election. This was over and above the dominance it achieved on the weaker side of the classical "class" divide and the favours it received from the Muslim minority by projecting its fight against the BJP as the main contest.

Analysts would do well to examine what connectivity the Delhi polls have with the course of India’s political development since independence, and whether the AAP will succeed in defining a place for itself in the national politics of the future.

On this last point, it is to be recalled that free India was a developing country that had issues of poverty staring her in the face. The ideological spectrum that divided the world during the Cold War had compelled India to adopt an approach to economic development and people’s welfare that got endorsement from the Left. Between one superpower leading "international communism" and the other championing the "free world’, the "mixed economy" format for India seemed to operate well within a democratic dispensation.

However, in the Nehru era itself, the issues of governance such as preponderance of bureaucracy; lack of accountability for implementation of plans on account of growing corruption; and preoccupation of the country’s chief political executive with the international – rather than the domestic scene – started exposing the chinks in India's armour.

Meanwhile, the rise of caste and region based parties as Delhi looked too distant to the people on the ground and the dwindling relevance of the economic divide between the ideological Left and the Right, started showing up. The political scene of India consequently saw a lot of fragmentation. In the post-Cold War era, India's domestic polity delineated two mainstream forces – the Congress representing the Centre-Left, and the BJP – steadily rising through the traumatic Janata Party experiment – showing up as the sheet anchor of the Centre-Right. From the decade of the '80s onwards, however, the Congress began sliding because of corruption and other issues.

Pragmatism

This was a period in which the BJP rose, as it stuck to its appeal as a pragmatic party of the Centre-Right and a repository of nationalism against the divisive practice of majority-minority politics.

The General Election of 2014 held in the backdrop of the misgovernance and scams of UPA-II on the one hand, and the promise of development and delivery under the convincing leadership of Narendra Modi, on the other – installed the BJP government at the Centre with a comfortable majority. The event however, marked the beginning of the process in Delhi by which the space created in the segment of the political spectrum that was labelled as Centre-Left, would now be occupied by the AAP.

Impact

It is too early to anticipate the long range impact of the Delhi Assembly polls in and outside the nation’s capital. The BJP can continue consolidating its hold as the mainstream Centre-Right party, in the new globalised world, that promises to alleviate poverty through rapid economic growth. The politics of development – if it truly takes off – can still hope to overtake the traditional populism of the Left-leaning parties, and also end the minority-majority card that is so consistently played by many for political gain.

In any case, politics will now be evaluated by the performance of the leaders put in charge of governance. Ideological labels, populist slogans and promises without delivery, has been the staple of politics long enough. Electoral ups and downs in future will depend on leaders and parties coming good in the eyes of the people.