Delhi Results | The Delhi voter makes it clear — vote is for development

People of Delhi have spoken, and here are the major outcomes of the Delhi election verdict:

• Schools, health clinics, sanitation and water beat the rhetoric of Hindu versus Muslim, Ram temple, Pakistan bashing and labelling Arvind Kejriwal as a terrorist.
• Clean candidates beat tainted professional politicians such as Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s Kapil Mishra (of the “shoot the traitors” infamy).
• A majority of Aam Admi Party (AAP) MLAs have been elected again proving the party’s performance-based politics.
• Free social benefits, such as subsidised electricity, water and transport are game changers.

The Delhi voter seems to say “show me the vikas, not jumlas”. If one were to extend metaphors used during the election campaign, the Delhi voter has not heeded the “goli maaro” call by some BJP leaders, and have instead done a “jhadu maaro”.

Whether this will lead to any introspective counter-currents within the larger RSS-BJP remains to be seen, but this victory is sure to put winds in the sails of the opposition parties and consolidate anti-BJP sentiments across the country.

For Kejriwal, who projected himself as the caring and responsible ‘beta’ (son) to his ‘family’ of Delhi residents, this triumph is a resounding victory against divisive politics and personal attacks. This success will only embolden him and his party further to expand and perhaps project the AAP mascot as one of the leading opposition figures.

What led to this victory was a careful tightrope walk between projecting AAP’s development achievements and avoiding the boobytraps of BJP’s campaign around the CAA-NRC-NPR, which the party equates with sedition and more. The ever careful Kejriwal also blunted the BJP’s self-declared monopoly on Hindu religion by his own televised ‘temple run’ to the Hanuman temple at which he has been a regular for many years. Today’s verdict too has come on a Tuesday, considered to be the day of Hanuman, devotees of whom believe that a true prayer doesn’t go unanswered on this day.

Interestingly, the BJP’s biggest religious mascot, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath too failed to make a mark on Delhi voters. Looking ahead, the Delhi verdict will certainly have a substantial knock-on effect on the Bihar election later this year as it indicates that polarising politics alone cannot beat politics of development and performance.

In several states across India, the story of Delhi’s success in transforming government schools had become viral on social media long before even the announcement of the election dates. Along with cheap electricity and water, the free neighbourhood health clinics too puts the ‘Delhi model’ on a governance pedestal that few states have achieved.

Despite a virulent campaign against ‘freebies and doles’ by the BJP-led NDA, the common Delhiite has made it clear as daylight that bread and butter issues remain the topmost priority for a majority of people.

For the BJP, the Delhi loss can’t be a total surprise. It couldn’t unite its state unit that remained largely dependent on Shah’s strategy and Modi’s charisma. Many of its candidates were seen as those who were popular on social media but lacked grassroots support.

The BJP may want to dismiss this massive loss as just another state election, but will find it difficult to do so, given the kind of profile that the party itself accorded to this poll. Led by Shah, it deployed a battery of ministers and conducted thousands of meetings. Moreover, it was the BJP that made this a do-or-die battle, and now that its best-laid plan has come undone, it cannot expect the people to believe otherwise. The most honourable action that the party can take is to accept defeat, apologise for the toxic campaign and move on.

Valay Singh is a freelance journalist. Views expressed personal.