Delhi polls: Kejriwal rides development agenda, BJP misses the bus

The Aam Aadmi Party was quick to realise an important aspect of Delhi that the Bharatiya Janata Party failed to notice. It was that elections in Delhi are different from that in any other state since the Capital is a city-state where people come to meet their aspirations and need development.

Updated on: Feb 4, 2015, 08:21:20 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) was quick to realise an important aspect of Delhi that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) failed to notice. It was that elections in Delhi are different from that in any other state since the Capital is a city-state where people come to meet their aspirations and need development.

AAP-s-Arvind-Kejriwal-along-with-other-leaders-releases-the-party-s-manifesto-for-the-Delhi-assembly-elections-at-Constitution-Club-in-New-Delhi-Sushil-Kumar-HT-Photo

The polls in Delhi cannot be fought merely on insinuations against opponents, creating communal divide, or on caste lines. It has to be contested on an agenda to bring about positive change in the lives of people.

That was the mantra of Sheila Dikshit, who was chief minister for 15 years, before Arvind Kejriwal upset her apple-cart riding high on his anti-corruption crusade in 2013.

Wiser after his messy 49 days in government, Kejriwal has somewhat adopted Dikshit’s election promise basket where there was something for every section of the society and the opponents were not attacked vociferously. Kejriwal projected himself in a developmental avatar as he promised more colleges and free WiFi for the youth, a better and responsive security system for women, a better and corruption-free working environment for the business community, apart from repeated apologies for quitting about a year ago. He did not attack Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his election rallies and instead marketed his developmental plank.

The reframed Kejriwal has found traction among Delhiites and as per the HT-C Fore survey, his party will emerge as the single largest party in the Delhi Assembly and will pass the majority test. Other opinion polls in the last few days have also indicated that Kejriwal would be the next chief minister of Delhi.

The BJP on the other hand presented its vision — a mere expression of interest and not a promise — for Delhi on Tuesday, just four days before the city goes to polls showing the terrible state of affairs in the party. Unlike the AAP, the BJP does not have enough time to convince people about its development vision. Kejriwal, on the other hand, has been talking about his agenda for the city for the last three months.

Sudanshu Trivedi, BJP spokesperson, was candid enough on a television channel to admit that Kejriwal had an advantage of starting early but expressed confidence that his party would overcome that advantage. But his party has not explained the reason for the delay in preparing the development agenda for the city.

The question that may be asked is what difference does development agenda make. The reply could be found in a simple but complex statistics that about 80% of the city’s population comprises migrants who came here in the last 25 years. They are not bothered about individuals, caste and community, or religion. An unifying factor for them is that they are aspirational and would like to vote for the government that can meet their aspirations.

The BJP has not been able to meet that aspiration. The HT opinion poll shows the party will suffer defeat in outer and east Delhi — the two regions it almost swept in the 2013 assembly polls. The AAP has made deep inroads in these regions even though it may lose a bit in the middle class majority areas in Central and South Delhi, the survey shows.

It was strange to see that the BJP wasted so much time on trying to polarise voters, targeting its main opponent Kejriwal and making the Delhi polls a high voltage drama instead of presenting a developmental agenda much in advance for a debate and discussion by voters. It will be interesting to see whether its “late” vision document, which is not a promise to voters like a manifesto, will have considerable impact for the party in the polls? Opinion polls show it will do so.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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