BackDelhi elections: Will the AAP play spoiler?
What's going to happen if no party gets a simple majority and AAP holds the balance of power?
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Delhi goes to polls in less than a day from now. Sheila Dikshit has been chief minister of the Union Territory for 15 years (Yes, contrary to popular belief, Delhi is a Union Territory and not a state, even though it has a chief minister and a legislature) and wants a fourth shot at the job. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)—Delhi was, for many years, its stronghold, both in the assembly and Lok Sabha—has been licking its wounds for a long time now and has been pulling out all stops. And, of course, there is the unknown variable in the equation—the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).
Among all chief ministers in the country, the Delhi one possibly has the least power at his or her disposal. For instance, Delhi Police comes under the Union home ministry and not the Delhi government. Much of the town planning and public works come under the Union ministry of urban development. Yet, the post of chief minister of Delhi, if nothing else, brings with it a high profile, even some glamour. So, the Delhi elections get media coverage perhaps disproportionate to both the size of the territory, and the government’s ambit of responsibilities. Political parties make it a matter of prestige.
There have been at least a dozen opinion polls over the past four or five weeks trying to sense which way the electorate would go. The problem is that these surveys have thrown up wildly different results. Most predict a hung assembly, with the Congress and the BJP neck and neck, and the AAP playing the spoiler. But a few have given the BJP a simple majority. The AAP does its own polls and has announced that it is going to form the next government. This is, however, unlikely.
So what’s going to happen if no party gets a simple majority and the AAP holds the balance of power? The AAP’s supreme leader Arvind Kejriwal has been asked this repeatedly, and he has always replied with a smile that there’s no question of a hung assembly, the AAP will come to power on its own.
What, however, is most probable is that whichever of the two national parties gets the larger number of seats, it will still fall short of majority in the 70-member assembly by five or six seats, with the AAP and a couple of independents winning the rest. This could give rise to three scenarios:
Scenario 1: The AAP, with its seven or eight seats, is in a dramatically powerful position. It can stop the assembly from passing Bills, stymie the budget, make demands that the government formed by the largest party can’t refuse. In short, it can hold the government to ransom and theoretically has the power to bring it down. But this will not be a smart thing to do. History shows that the people of India don’t really like governments being pulled down before their time is up. Consider the 1990s. The Congress, under Sitaram Kesari, withdrew support for the Deve Gowda-led government, agreed to support the same coalition under I.K.Gujral, and then got rid of that administration too.
This led not to the Congress coming to power, but Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s three stints as Prime Minister. The first lasted 13 days, the second 13 months, and the third its full term. Every time he lost the confidence vote in the Lok Sabha, he and his party came back with a larger mandate. So it will make more sense for the AAP to run with the hares and hunt with the hounds, supporting the government or launching aggrieved street protests on a case-to-case basis. This, for the common citizen of Delhi, may not be a very attractive prospect.
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Scenario 2: Whichever—the Congress or the BJP—emerges the largest party after the elections, tries to break the AAP. Both the parties have enough experience in this sort of behind-closed-doors shenanigans. Can the AAP hold its flock together? That will be the true test of its much-touted fundamental principles of honesty and zero tolerance on corruption. But Kejriwal and his tight-knot cabal must be ready for the possibility of defections. In the last few weeks, I’ve chatted with many average Delhi voters—drivers, paan shop owners and their like. The majority view—and I must here admit that the people I spoke to do not in way form a representative sample—was that the AAP would change after the elections, and its MLAs would want a share of the spoils on offer.
This, of course, may not happen. But we must also consider the fact that Kejriwal had to pick 70 candidates for his party within two weeks time, and getting 70 completely honest people to stand for assembly elections at such short notice is a tough call, especially in a city like Delhi, drunk on power and on flouting laws, where corruption has seeped down to the lowest level possible. One can assume, simply based on statistical probability, that some of those candidates are not that pure of heart and a few of these charlatans could even win.
Could some of his MLAs defect? If they do, Delhi gets a stable government, but the AAP would have suffered a terrible setback. It will take a long time for the party to come back into the centre of the ring.
Scenario 3: The BJP is the largest party, but short of a majority, and Sheila Dikshit has lost her seat to Kejriwal (he is contesting directly against Dikshit in the New Delhi constituency).
Then President’s Rule in Delhi could certainly be on the cards. That is the best situation Kejriwal can hope for, and he will certainly go to town over that, as will the BJP.
None of these scenarios sound very nice for the people of Delhi. But they should also realise that their immediate political situation is going through a phase of great flux. One cannot predict with any certainly what it will look like when the dust settles. What is certain, though, is that the AAP will be a much more potent force if it stays in the Opposition for some years longer. This will give the party time to work out what it wants to do on matters of policy, and get closer to the citizens of India and understand their hopes and aspirations.
Kejriwal should remember that he shot to prominence during the Anna Hazare movement whose principal supporters were young middle class people with aspirations and ambitions, but who also wanted to achieve their potential in a society and governance system that was just, and rewarded the meritorious. Kejriwal has moved a long way away from that bunch of idealistic people who believe in their capabilities, in competition and a fair but free market. His agenda is now very much socialistic, from arbitrarily offering free water to citizens to cutting electricity bills by 50% (how did he arrive at that figure, other than the reasoning that 50% sounds good?) and controlling fees charged by private schools. Is this what India needs? How is he then different from what various state politicians promise and go on to ruin the economies of their states? In fact, some of this sounds like a flashback to the Indira Gandhi days, which had a terrible effect on the Indian economy and polity.
If one listens to Kejriwal, he speaks mainly about putting people in jail, and about putting people in charge. There’s something of a contradiction here. This black-and-white world he appears to inhabit is disturbing. We are all guilty. Of course, some of us are more guilty, and some of us less. And what Kejriwal does not seem to understand is that a lot of us are not yet guilty because we haven’t got the chance to be corrupt. Did the rise of Lalu Prasad and Mayawati lead to less corruption? Kejriwal should ponder over that, and plan his next moves. In addition to getting a crash course in practical economics.
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