The upcoming Delhi Municipal Corporation’s elections are very crucial for all three contenders: AAP, INC, and BJP. While AAP is desperate to take control over Delhi in every manner, INC has high hopes with Punjab’s stupendous mandate and will definitely try to regain some political power in India’s capital. BJP is trying to make it a hat-trick by keeping the office for the third time. But the question is, if AAP, a party, which came to the power with a great mandate of 67 out of 70, and with great promises, will win yet again? Looking at them and expecting them to win again is quite obvious, especially with their tremendous vote share in the last election and good performance in the election before that when no party got a majority, but AAP colluded with INC and formed a government. Although later, under the misconception that he is a PM material Arvind Kejriwal abandoned Delhi only to get a humiliating defeat in Kashi.
Without going further, we need to understand how AAP managed to get that huge support in the last two legislative elections and if the same factors will also govern in the upcoming MCD elections. Actually, AAP had few things that helped them to win those elections: the element of surprise, a promise of unconventional and clean politics, and, the freebie politics. They won comfortably because people had no prior experience with them, people of Delhi took AAP’s promises at their face value. There is a saying, “It’s better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than open it and remove all doubts.” The same thing happened with AAP. In the last two years of their governance (or mis-governance rather) they lost all their credibility. Now, there is no element of surprise. People now know that they are good for nothing. And people are not wrong. AAP’s most sparkling promise was to eliminate corruption, but in last two years, we saw a completely different story. According to this DNA report, there is a massive scam going in Arvind Kejriwal ambitious ‘Mohalla Clinics’. Apparently, their doctors are treating two patients in one minute. This rate is quite impressive, isn’t it? This is what the Vigilance Department has to say: “Doctors in the mohalla clinics are making false entries of patients, hence making up to Rs. 4 lakh per month, a higher salary than that of the Prime Minister and the President. Everyone in the health department knows this, but is doing nothing.” This was just one example. The exchange of currency notes from DTC’s daily revenue by AAP is a widely known fact. Their Commander Mr. Arvind Kejriwal is also showing his true colours. He and his brother-in-law Surender Kumar Bansal and a public servant are under scrutiny and Delhi Police has launched a probe into this. AAP came to do a ‘different type of politics’, however, in last two years, the Delhi Police has arrested 13 of their MLAs on charges ranging from rape, extortion and cheating, to forgery and rioting. How are they different from other rotten political parties? People are understanding this as well. We do know how their promises of free Wi-Fi, CCTVs all over the city went, don’t we? How many of us have seen their marshals in the DTC buses? How many new colleges have they opened out of the promised 20 new colleges? They came with a promise of ending VIP culture; we all know how it went. Their MLAs started a recruitment spree for their minions, went for a whopping 400% hike in their salary, with nonsensical reasons like the need for more money to keep them incorruptible. Excuse me, but it’s morality and not salary that keeps people incorruptible. Gone are the days when Indian voters used to vote for freebies and false-promises. AAP’s stellar performance in Goa and Punjab legislative assembly elections are glaring example of this.
Arvind Kejriwal tried to pull a one of its kind of politics by blocking the payment to MCD on behalf of Delhi Government, sending MCD into a series of strikes.
By doing so, he was disseminating the message to the MCD as well as people of Delhi to give MCD to him, if they want it to be running smoothly. This is clearly an extortion type of politics. But, will people of Delhi yield to this? I don’t think so, because apparently, by doing this, he turned Delhi into `garbage capital`, as MCD sanitation workers dump muck on streets, go on strike. His reasoning for not paying was that the Delhi Government didn’t have money to pay MCD, however, they are spending Rs. 16 Lakhs per day on advertisements. A large number of the advertisements were published or broadcasted in towns and cities across India. People of Delhi are now understanding these things as well.
However, there was one factor that could have worked in their (AAP’s) favour, ‘anti-incumbent votes’. But, this too has been blocked brilliantly by BJP as “BJP will not field any sitting councillor, all new faces this time”. Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari said “Following a meeting with senior party leadership, it has been decided that no incumbent councillor will be given a party ticket irrespective of their track record. The purpose behind the decision is to develop a new leadership. New faces and young leaders will be given an opportunity to serve the city.” He further said that the party will also not field any family member of a sitting councillor, thereby, curbing the nepotism factor. Talking of Mr. Major Tiwari brings to mind yet another move by BJP. Manoj Tiwari has recently been appointed as Delhi BJP chief, and as per Census 2001, 40 percent of Delhi’s population consists of migrants and more than 25 percent of the group belongs to the Bhojpuri speaking belt. And Mr. Tiwari is a well-known face in the other parts of Bihar-UP as well, and so consequently to its diaspora. Needless to say, this certainly will pull good chunk of votes to BJP.
AAP is further destined to lose its vote share to INC and Yogendra Yadav’s ‘Swaraj India’. As previously mentioned, while INC got some oxygen from the Punjab win and their party workers’ are flying high, and they will not surrender as they did in the previous Delhi legislative assembly elections of 2015. Also, Swaraj India has decided to field their candidates in all 272 seats. This is bad news for AAP, because both these parties will part-away more of AAP’s vote-share than that of BJP. This too in the time when AAP’s party workers’ spirit is at all-time low (may be comparable to their Kashi humiliation of 2014 general election). And guess what! Nitish Kumar is in the MCD fray too.
AAP could have won this election comfortably, had they fulfilled even 50% of their poll promises, instead of vagabonding, Arvind Kejriwal would have been focused on Delhi. But alas! They ruined a golden chance of proving themselves. Arvind Kejriwal’s below the belt remarks about PM Modi will also hurt AAP’s prospects heavily. The anti-incumbency factors have been dealt with by BJP, AAP’s vote share has collapsed, all their poll-promises have been proved to be bogus. Thus, under these circumstances, AAP is destined to lose this upcoming MCD election.