The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is confident of repeating its stellar performance in the just-concluded assembly polls in Maharashtra and Haryana in the two more poll-bound states, Jammu and Kashmir and Jharkhand, the results of which will be out on Dec. 23.
But even bigger political challenge and opportunity has come up for the BJP with Delhi too now due for assembly polls, likely in February 2015. While the BJP has successfully installed its governments in Haryana and Maharashtra, the latter for the first time ever, the right-wing Hindu nationalist party is hoping to wrest Jharkhand too from the opposition and emerge much stronger in Jammu and Kashmir, the only Muslim-majority state in India.
Strong performances in Jharkhand and Jammu and Kashmir will definitely improve the BJP’s position in the Rajya Sabha, one of the two houses in Indian Parliament; the other being the Lok Sabha. The more states a political party rules, the better strength it commands in the Rajya Sabha.
It is crucial for the BJP government to beef up its strength in the Rajya Sabha in near term to push ahead with its ambitious reforms, which need to be approved by both houses of the Parliament. That is why winning more and more states and bringing them under the BJP rule is of key importance for the Modi government, a strategy it is consciously employing.
However, winning Delhi assembly elections goes far beyond this strategy of beefing up its strength in the Rajya Sabha, as far as the BJP is concerned.
Though small in terms of size, Delhi is highly prestigious. Normally, political parties try to follow the “Delhi to New Delhi” political route, the former implying the Delhi state assembly while the latter connoting the central government.
The BJP has already captured New Delhi in the May 2014 general elections and would now be desperate to add Delhi to its kitty. But Delhi presents a formidable challenge to both BJP and Prime Minister Modi. No, it is not because the Congress, decimated by the BJP in the recent general elections, is on a resurgent mode. On the contrary, the Congress party is continuing with its downward slide. In both Maharashtra and Haryana, the Congress finished number three, for the first time in the history of independent India.
The Congress is likely to continue with its losing streak in Jammu and Kashmir, though it is sure to give a tough fight to the BJP in Jharkhand but only in alliance with two regional parties — Lalu Prasad Yadav’s Rashtriya Janata Dal and Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United). Modi’s problem in Delhi is not the Congress party, which is likely to finish third in Delhi assembly polls as well, given the current political scenario. The biggest problem for Modi in Delhi is Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). It is only because of the AAP factor that in the past five months the Modi government could not take a decision on the fate of Delhi government. The BJP tried its best to reach the magic figure of 36 in the 70-member assembly but then it realized that the numbers game is so badly stuck that even by hook or crook it was not possible to form a BJP government in Delhi.
Moreover, any further machinations by the BJP to form the government would only sully the party’s image and it would be politically incorrect to continue with such efforts. That is why PM Modi and BJP president Amit Shah decided to go for the only viable option: Fresh elections. Delhi has been under President’s rule since Kejriwal resigned in a huff as Delhi chief minister in February 2014, 49 days after he was installed as the chief minister after the December 2013 assembly elections. Even Kejriwal realizes that his resignation was a monumental blunder and has been urging Delhi voters to pardon him one last time. However, many people of Delhi who voted for him in the 2013 elections feel that Kejriwal’s resignation was an act of cowardice and he lacks leadership abilities and therefore still continue to be miffed with him.
Kejriwal made blunders after blunders. He fielded as many as 440 candidates on behalf of his party in the general elections but ended up only with just four seats, far lesser than the number of slaps he received from irate people during the highly acerbic campaign. Worse, he contested against Modi from Varanasi (Uttar Pradesh) without caring to forge some sort of understanding from his non-BJP opponents. Thus he stretched his party’s human and financial resources beyond limits. In short, he bit much more than he could chew.
But since his party’s rout in the general elections, Kejriwal has definitely sobered up. He refused to contest Maharashtra and Haryana assembly polls despite the party’s units in the two states clamored for it. His reason was that he now just wants to focus on Delhi, the cradle of AAP movement. This is surely not a good omen for Modi and the BJP.
