Why the BJP shouldn’t expect any help from AAP in Delhi

The assembly elections were supposed to end in a 4-0 sweep for the BJP but someone forgot to tell the Aam Aadmi party about it. Founded just over a year ago, AAP made a barnstorming debut in Delhi, winning 28 seats and preventing the BJP, which got 32 seats, from gaining an outright majority. AAP’s success also put a crimp in the premise that a BJP wave is sweeping the nation. While the BJP rolled to power in Rajasthan, boosted its majority in Madhya Pradesh, and edged ahead in Chhattishgarh, it was essentially a two-horse race between it and the Congress in those three states.

 In Delhi however, voters were presented with a third alternative and a sustantial number picked the newest kid on the block. Perhaps the biggest surprise of the day was Arvind Kejriwal, the founder and face of AAP, thumping three-time Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit by over 25,000 votes. The triumphant wave at AAP headquarters has also given the party the impetus it was looking for to take the plunge into national politics, which appears to have ruffled the BJP’s feathers even more. Perhaps smarting from not winning Delhi outright, BJP leaders took to denigrating their latest challenger, suggesting AAP was unfit for governance and that it would be swept aside by Modi-mania in the 2014 Lok Sabha AAP supporters celebrate the party's performance in the Delhi elections. 

Naresh Sharma/Firstpost During a discussion on NDTV, a BJP representative warned the AAP about showing humility and of the consequences of the coming of Modi. "The anti-Congress mandate is clear," he said. “All surveys have showed Narendra Modi is way ahead of Arvind Kejriwal as a preferred Prime Ministerial candidate. So if AAP doesn't respect that, the people will reject them. What they do - the wire cutting gimmicks - is exciting, but it isn't governance.” It was a sentiment that would be echoed by Ravi Shankar Prasad on CNN-IBN, when he said India is yearning for a change and that those people who have voted for AAP in Delhi would vote for Narendra Modi in the national elections. Even a seasoned politician like Arun Jaitley felt the need to criticise the AAP after the party refused to join hands with either the Congress of the BJP in Delhi.

 "You're an insider already and you're still positioning yourself as an outsider,” Jaitley said on NDTV. “What does that even mean? It means that you are embarrassed to be a part of a government from the fear of being criticized. What kind of politics is that?" Jaitley, who comes from the traditional paradigm of politic insisted that parties need to take pragmatic decisions and cannot be motivated by idealism. He, and other BJP leaders, also suggested that the AAP’s desire to sit in the opposition represented a shirking of responsibility and showed they coud not be taken seriously. However, Prashant Bhushan of the AAP rubbished these arguments. "We are not just an alternative political party,” he said. “We are trying to give the country an alternative brand of politics. 

How can we gang up with the same people, whose politics we have condemned? People are fed up of the duplicity and communalism of the BJP and Congress, hence they voted for us." He was backed up by Yogendra Yadav, who as usual spoke in measured tones. Yadav pointed out that the only possible way of 'cleansing' Delhi of he traditional form politics practised by the BJP and the Congress was to win an outright majority. Failing that, the party had no option but to take up the guise of a principled opposition. It was therefore juvenile to assert that the AAP didn’t want the responsibility of government because they refused to partner or support the other two parties. They were simply sticking to their principles and promises on the back of which they had been elected. Yogendra Yadav then smartly turned the tables on Jaitley. "Actually, I can throw the suggestion back to Mr Jaitley. Why doesn't BJP ally with Congress and lead the government? If they can say, 'how can we do it', why can't we say the same too? People who have voted for us have done so because they are wary of the same corrupt political traditions. We can't do some back door deal with any of them," he said. . 

Jaitley and others also argued that the AAP was not equipped to govern, saying it was easy to point fingers but much harder to actually lead and that if AAP did actually have to govern, the party would be found out. Once again Yogendra Yadav would not be drawn in to a mud slinging argument. Instead, he simply pointed out how the BJP and the Congress had been wrong about the APP from the beginning. “At first you said we'll fail if we formed a party. They you said we'll fail if we contest the polls. Now you're saying we'll not last long enough," he pointed out. While Harsh Vardan, the BJP’s chief ministerial candidate for Delhi admitted the party had underestimated the AAP, it seems like the BJP’s central leadership is determined to keep underestimating this upstart. Whether the BJP like it or not, the AAP is now set to grow beyond a Delhi-centric party and already has 307 district units in place across the country. "After this performance, more people will want to join us and fight for us," Prashant Bhushan said.

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