Opinion Express view on Delhi elections: Local is national

On the face of it, the upcoming election in Delhi — the dates for polling and counting were announced by the Election Commission Tuesday — will be a fight between the AAP, BJP and Congress. But it will be much more than just that. It may not be a full state, but the nation’s capital is the site, most of all, where the local is the national. People from across the country flock to it, searching for a home or a foothold, often carrying little more than a flickering aspiration to be part of a bigger possibility, a larger whole. To its own, and to those who come to it every day and every year, Delhi is the promise of a better education and greater avenues for growth. It is a shot at more rewarding job opportunities and the precious freedom that comes from social mobility. It is this urban sprawl, with one of the highest per capita incomes, dense with institutions of education and employment, home to the country’s largest and busiest metro rail system and, most of all, the city of bustling ambitions and teeming dreams that will vote for a new government on February 5. The campaign that is lifting off the ground, however, does not do justice to its setting.

So far, it seems that the AAP, India’s most successful political start-up in recent times, whose spectacular trajectory was also possible only under the Delhi arclights which can make small moments large, may be on a shakier footing than it has been in the last two assembly elections, which it swept comprehensively. The BJP, which has pocketed all the Lok Sabha seats and held on to a robust vote share even though it did not translate into a healthy seat tally in the assembly, is its main contender. The Congress, having ruled Delhi for 15 years, appears to have all but lost its footing. But be it the AAP’s attempts to fight the BJP on the BJP’s turf by brandishing an overt religiosity, or the BJP’s push to corner the AAP on the “sheesh mahal”, a self-goal by a party that styled itself as a platform for the aam aadmi, or the effort by both to outdo each other on DBTs, the battle threatens to be narrow and backward looking.

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What Delhi needs to hear from the AAP is how it plans to take forward its big ideas that seem to have stalled because it dropped the ball and/or due to its tug of war with the Centre’s nominee, the L-G. It needs to present a report card of the progress made in refurbishing the mohalla clinic and government school, and an account of the AAP’s next steps and how they will improve the quality of life beyond a reduced power, water bill. From the BJP, Delhi needs to hear an alternative plan for the city, and also how it will ensure the double benefits of a “double-engine sarkar” after having worked to squeeze the space and powers of the Delhi sarkar in the last 10 years relentlessly. As the battle unfolds, all players must know that what they say carries a larger resonance, that it strikes sparks, far beyond their poll arena’s boundaries. It’s a capital’s election which the nation is watching.