Opinion After Delhi election, lesson for all parties: Listen to the ground

As a result, such parties were assimilated into conventional politics or vanished into political oblivion. AAP’s novel governance model, which is based on universal welfarism and redistribution of state wealth, was tangentially different from earlier editions. AAP emerged from a mass movement, “India Against Corruption” (IAC), that peacefully agitated for the passage of the Lokpal Bill (ombudsman) in Parliament to end corruption in public life. It pursued the goal of “Swarajya” (governance by people) based on bottom-to-top party organisation and scripted a non-clichéd grammar and syntax of democratic politics. The back-to-back assembly election victories of AAP in Delhi in 2013, 2015 and 2020 and Punjab in 2022 with humongous mandates marked its electoral ascendancy and advent as a viable national political alternative.

A quick recap of AAP’s political trajectory reveals that its meteoric rise in politics stems from its primary objective: “Not to come to power; but to change the current corrupt and self-serving system of politics forever and make it strong enough to withstand corruption at any level of governance.” In its initial years, its popularity was due to principled politics with common persons at centre stage, in contrast to the prevalent strand of politics that was out of bounds for ordinary citizens and was firmly controlled by political dynasties. It succeeded in providing a model of governance that received accolades from India and abroad.

However, its style of politics soon changed from contestation to confrontational. The debates and discussions over people’s welfare suddenly made way for political confrontation with the LG and the central government. As a result, the pace of development and governance came to a halt, affecting a large segment of citizens. On the other hand, Kejriwal’s way of functioning in the early days was itself antithetical to what he preached. His emphasis on social and political democracy vanished when it came to intra-party democracy due to his high-handedness, which included purging founder-members from the party.

AAP’s unique selling point transformed from people’s democratic collective and decentralised leadership to a run-of-the-mill party shaped by a personality cult and susceptible to its idiosyncrasies.

The Delhi-NCR-based media’s fascination and adulation of Kejriwal’s simplicity-minimalism led to wide coverage, which created his larger-than-life persona. The easy success and instant power created a false aura of electoral invincibility and political arrogance among its top leaders, who deviated from practicing moral probity and honesty in the public domain. Their alleged involvement in liquor policy and other scams significantly damaged AAP’s image of honesty and played a crucial role in the loss of political legitimacy. The story of AAP is intriguing as it presented an alternative political thesis for self-governance based on Gandhian principles but practiced a politics of antithesis and collapsed while trying to balance its paradoxes. The party emerged as a strong challenger to the overarching dominance of the BJP, but its recent defeat seems to have squandered its accumulated political capital and betrayed the common citizen’s confidence in it.

The Delhi election mandate provides lessons to all three dominant parties. The BJP won the elections banking on strong anti-incumbency against AAP, Modi’s charisma and the absence of opposition alliance. However, the long delay in finalising a chief minister reveals the crisis in the state leadership and over-centralisation of the decision-making process. The Delhi mandate, read together with the Lok Sabha verdict, proves that the saffron party wins primarily due to Modi’s magnetic personality and the support of the RSS. However, the party needs to build its own election-winning capital, or its UP setbacks in 2024 might be replicated in other states or the 2029 Lok Sabha elections. The failure of Congress to open its account in Delhi after consecutive defeats in Haryana and Maharashtra indicates that its revival narrative does not hold much water.

The time is now ripe for making the high command more grounded, and the revival plans should focus on “vocal for local” leadership. The grand old party needs to shed its big brother attitude and work towards strengthening the non-BJP alliance, as it alone cannot defeat the saffron allies nationally. AAP needs to come out of the shadow of Kejriwal and rebuild the party from scratch to include common people and make its leadership more inclusive. It should strongly focus on Punjab and create another model of sustainable governance that may appeal to the citizens in other states. The chances of AAP winning back Delhi seems to be a farfetched idea for now, but as Otto von Bismarck said, “Politics is the art of the possible, the attainable — the art of the next best.”

The writer is a political analyst at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi