Delhi polls | Anti-incumbency at play, but Kejriwal holds fort for AAP with freebies

Whether the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) retains power in Delhi or loses it will, of course, be known only on February 8 but the ongoing Assembly poll campaign portends a significant shift in the national capital’s political realities.

Since its inception in November 2012, Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has had the unique distinction among all political parties of India of never sitting on the Opposition Benches in the Delhi assembly. Over the past 12 years, the AAP’s meteoric rise, from a party that first came to power in December 2013, displacing the 15-year Congress regime with a 49-day minority government and subsequently went on to win historic mandates in the 2015 and 2020 polls, pushed its rivals to the margins of Delhi’s politics.

Failing to secure any representation in the Delhi Assembly, the Congress was practically eviscerated by the AAP in the city-state that was once its most trusted citadel. The BJP, despite sweeping multiple municipal and Lok Sabha polls, continued to struggle when it came to wresting reins of the Delhi government. The AAP’s consecutive landslide victories eventually paved the way for its expansion, making it the only regional outfit that, within a decade of its formation, came to rule not just Delhi but also Punjab.

Also read: AAP Delhi manifesto| Rs 2,100 for women among Kejriwal ki Guarantees

AAP’s enviable run

The AAP’s enviable run at the hustings allowed the party’s leaders and workers alike to even boastfully dub Kejriwal as the only Opposition leader who can match, if not outwit, Prime Minister Narendra Modi in political games.

But then, all of this is the AAP’s decade-long history. The Delhi elections, scheduled on February 5, are a fight for the AAP’s future. And, if murmurs on the ground are anything to go by, there are more than a few reasons that should worry AAP and its wily convenor, even if the party ultimately triumphs in what is evidently its most challenging electoral test yet.

The Federal travelled across key constituencies to understand how the voter views AAP and its famed “Delhi Model of Governance” over a decade after the party stormed to power. Among the constituencies The Federal visited were New Delhi, where Kejriwal is in the fray for a fourth time, Chief Minister Atishi’s seat of Kalkaji and Jangpura, the assembly segment from which former Deputy CM Manish Sisodia is seeking election after having represented Patparganj since 2013.

Also visited were the Muslim-dominated constituencies of Okhla, Mustafabad and Matia Mahal to understand how the minority community, a deciding factor in at least seven constituencies of Delhi, perceives the AAP given Kejriwal’s proclivity for showing off his Hindu credentials while maintaining a deafening silence on issues concerning Muslims.

Sense of fatigue

Most voters The Federal spoke to believed that the AAP was poised to return to power for a fourth consecutive term with Kejriwal leading the government again. What must trouble the ruling party, however, is that this assessment was almost always accompanied with a sense of fatigue against the public acrimony between the AAP government and Delhi’s Lieutenant Governor and, more importantly, with palpable signs of anti-incumbency.

Also read: Decoding Delhi election: Who has edge in high-stakes battle?

Even more significant was that the voter’s belief in Kejriwal’s imminent return as CM stemmed less from an approval of his administrative performance, particularly after the party’s 2020 victory, and more from the perception that neither the BJP nor the Congress offered a better alternative or evoke confidence over their ability to displace the AAP from power. A significant departure from the past two elections also was the overwhelming view that governance was better under the Sheila Dikshit-led Congress regime and that Kejriwal should “focus more on governance than drama” if he returns as CM.

No more corruption-free

The biggest take-away and, arguably, also the most consequential one from The Federal’s interaction with Delhiites, however, was the AAP was no longer seen as a party that stands for corruption-free politics; the promise with which Kejriwal had founded the AAP in 2012. The significance of this is immense as the AAP had always projected it to be, as the BJP once did, a party with a difference; one focussed on efficient and corruption-free governance and free from the trappings of caste or religious appeasement, money and muscle power or pragmatic ‘compromises’ with adversaries.

Sunil Kumar, a vendor at the Refugee Market near Bengali Market, which falls within the New Delhi assembly segment, told The Federal he had become an AAP voter in 2013 after years of supporting the Congress but felt “cheated” by the party now. “When the Anna Andolan (the India Against Corruption campaign that paved way for AAP’s formation) happened, I used to leave my shop and go to Jantar Mantar to join the protests but today I feel like a fool... where is Lokpal, where is strict action against corruption? There is no difference between AAP, Congress and BJP when it comes to corruption; they are all corrupt,” says Kumar.

Corruption allegations against Kejriwal and his AAP colleagues in the excise policy case and the Sheeshmahal row are a common refrain as is the talk of a booming “tanker mafia”, a reference to an allegedly AAP-backed syndicate of suppliers of water tankers in many areas of Delhi where water supply is either erratic or simply unusable.

Exploiting sentiments

At the Kalkaji Transit Camp, situated in chief minister Atishi’s constituency, an agitated Sharda Khatik tells The Federal people in the area have “no option except paying huge sums of money for water tankers” because the “corporation supply (of water) is so filthy that forget drinking or cooking, we can’t even use it in toilets”. Echoes of such complaints could also be heard in constituencies like Shakur Basti, Babarpur and Rajinder Nagar, which are represented by key Kejriwal aides, Satyender Jain, Gopal Rai and Durgesh Pathak, respectively.

Also read: Delhi polls will expose 'jugalbandi' between Congress and BJP, says Kejriwal

Yet, both Kumar and Khatik insist they will vote for Kejriwal and Atishi, respectively. Their reasons – the lure of electing a chief minister or important minister from their constituency, the expectation of “muft bijli, paani (free electricity and water)” and a litany of other freebies that feature in Kejriwal’s poll ‘guarantees’ and the hope that the AAP would address at least some of their concerns in its next term.

The AAP leadership has no qualms in exploiting this anticipation among voters of electing powerful ministers nor in preying on their fear of being denied benefits of the Delhi government’s ongoing welfare schemes if the BJP comes to power. Sisodia can often be heard telling Jangpura voters, “I will become the Deputy CM of Delhi after the elections and you can call up any officer in the Secretariat to get your work done”.

In Kalkaji and the adjoining Greater Kailash constituency, AAP workers go around telling voters that an important portfolio for Atishi and Saurabh Bharadwaj (the latter is in the fray from Greater Kailash) is “guaranteed” once Kejriwal returns as CM. The AAP convenor has been “cautioning” voters in his campaigns against voting for the BJP, AAP’s main rival in the current election, asserting that their monthly expense will “go up by Rs 25000” if he doesn’t return as CM because “BJP will stop all pro-people schemes started by me”.

Lure of freebies

The biggest motivation among voters to choose AAP over the BJP or the Congress, despite mounting complaints over crumbling civic infrastructure, deadly air pollution and corruption, is clearly the freebies that Kejriwal is now instantly associated with. Understandably, the AAP’s campaign revolves almost entirely around “Kejriwal’s guarantees” of providing electricity, water, education in Delhi government schools and medical aid at Mohalla Clinics free of cost while also, if voted back to power, rolling out a cash dole of Rs 2,100 for every woman, free bus rides for students, a Rs 18,000 monthly honorarium to Hindu and Sikh priests, scholarships for Dalit students who get admission in universities abroad, and so on.

Delhi was a late entrant to the freebie-culture sundry political parties entwined with elections and governance elsewhere in the country. The Congress’s electoral planks through the 15 years of its rule in Delhi under Sheila Dikshit were largely confined to an infrastructure overhaul of the national capital – the operationalisation and expansion of the Delhi Metro corridor, switching the Delhi Transport bus fleet from diesel to CNG, building roads, flyovers, hospitals and even night shelters for homeless, etc.

With his muft bijli, paani, shiksha promises, which in AAP’s first full term from 2015 to 2020 were implemented at war-footing, Kejriwal changed the idiom of Delhi’s electoral politics. Five years on, it doesn’t come as a surprise that the AAP wants to cast the freebie net even wider and that the voters continue to respond favourably to it.

Also read: Delhi polls | Coalition dharma holds back Rahul from taking Kejriwal head-on

Trust in Kejriwal

Ramesh Basoya, a Greater Kailash voter, tells The Federal, that he doesn’t buy Kejriwal’s claim that the BJP would “end all freebies” if voted to power but says he trusts Kejriwal more when it comes to rolling out the promised largesse.

“They have done it in the last 10 years and they know that this is what gets them votes. People have forgotten all the other things AAP promised when it first came to power. Nobody cares that they didn’t bring a Lokpal Bill or that Kejriwal got sheeshmahal built despite saying he will never take a government accommodation. Today, everything has become so expensive. My son is a post graduate but doesn’t have a job... muft bijli, muft paani, muft ilaaj, muft ration... kahin toh hamara paisa kharcha bach raha hai na, bas yehi soch kar AAP ko vote de denge; baaki sarkar toh Sheila Dikshit ki hi zyada badhiya thi; Dilli bana diya (freebies help in cutting our expenses so we vote for AAP, otherwise Sheila Dikshit’s was a better government; it really built Delhi),” Basoya said.

This nostalgia over Sheila Dikshit’s reign is, in fact, resurfaces in any conversation about the Delhi polls. If the AAP can afford to ignore it this election, it is so only because the Congress has been unable to present both leadership and a cohesive poll narrative in Delhi. On the other hand, the BJP, despite closely holding on to its traditional vote bank, appears unable to break away the various voting blocs that shifted en masse from the Congress to the AAP over the past decade.

Unease among Muslims

If there is, however, one section of the Delhi voter which is vocally uneasy with the AAP’s politics it is the Muslim community. However, it is equally evident that the community isn’t prepared just yet to sever its support to the party due to a “lack of options”.

Demonised by the BJP and invisibilised in the AAP’s discourse, the Muslims have once again begun to warm up to the Congress. Public meetings addressed by Congress candidates and campaigners in constituencies like Okhla and Mustafabad have been drawing huge crowds.

The AAP support for the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in Parliament, its apathy towards the anti-CAA protestors of Shaheen Bagh and, most significantly, the disappearing act that the AAP leadership pulled when Muslims were under siege in riot-hit Northeast Delhi in February 2020 have collectively made a visible dent in the party’s credibility among the minority community. Kejriwal’s repeated assertion of his “Hanuman bhakt” identity coupled with the AAP’s overt soft-Hindutva outreach with schemes like the Pujari Granthi Samman Yojana has further alienated the Muslims.

Also read: ‘Rs 2026 crore loss’: CAG report jolts AAP ahead of polls; exposes Kejriwal, says BJP

'AAP worse than BJP'

“He (Kejriwal) is worse than the BJP. BJP waale toh hame mooh par gaali dete hain par AAP waale peeth mei chhura maarte hain (the BJP abuses us to our face but AAP stabs us in the back),” a Mustafabad resident, who lost his shop to arson during the 2020 riots, told The Federal while requesting anonymity. Mirza Irfan, another voter from Mustafabad’s Chandu Nagar locality, too speaks angrily of the AAP’s “betrayal” but adds he would still vote for the party as “the Congress candidate may not win and splitting of Muslim votes would only benefit the BJP”.

Mohd Anees, a fruit vendor near Tikona Park in the Okhla constituency, said the entire AAP stood in solidarity with Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia, Satyender Jain and Sanjay Singh when these leaders went to jail for corruption but the party’s most prominent Muslim legislator, Okhla MLA Amanatullah Khan was “left to fight for himself” when he was arrested in a slew of “politically motivated cases”. Anees says he has no complaints against Amanatullah as he is a “good MLA who is approachable and helpful” but adds that he is “thinking of voting for the Congress candidate (Ariba Khan) this time because of the way AAP used Muslims for votes and then forgot them after the elections”.

The Congress factor

That the Congress, despite running a lacklustre campaign with no clear narrative and an absentee high command, is even being talked about as a potential choice among voters should worry the AAP at a time when its aura of a party with a difference has been severely dented.

After all, it was the shift of the Congress’ vote to the AAP that paved the way for Kejriwal’s dominance over Delhi politics. The current election may not be one to reverse that electoral shift but could it leave the AAP jolted?