Number Theory: What is the AAP’s core politics?
The AAP’s decision to have an alliance with the Congress in Delhi will make it relatively immune to the voter flight towards the Congress
Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal has come up with a very different criticism of the recently notified rules of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, or CAA. While most opposition parties have criticised CAA on the grounds that it links citizenship with religion and can potentially (when clubbed with a National Register of Citizens) be misused, Kejriwal on Wednesday accused the Narendra Modi government of opening the floodgates for a mass migration of non-Muslims into India via CAA. Such a migration, he argued, will put a big squeeze on the economic fortunes of the local population. To be sure, this is not the first time Kejriwal or the AAP have taken an outlying political position against core ideological issues raised by the BJP. The demand for printing photos of Hindu gods and goddesses on currency notes as a way to revive the Indian economy (AAP said this during the 2022 Gujarat election campaign) is another such example. What explains this? An HT analysis shows that this is perhaps a direct reflection of AAP’s core support base being very small, and therefore the need for it to appeal to its inconstant voters.
