We are two days away from the Delhi Elections as the future of Arvind Kejriwal and his Aam Aadmi Party hangs in balance.
It is not every day we see a political party holding an office for five years after winning 67 out of 70 assembly seats. Especially when the party is just over 8 years old. Especially in the Indian electorate. AAP has done it gracefully if we are not exaggerating.
Past his first term, Arvind Kejriwal who once promised the people of Delhi of introducing alternate politics, is running for the second term against the popular yet faceless BJP and almost non-existent Congress.
Despite a growing polarization in the capital, the AAP, its leaders and spokespersons have continued to bring the debate back to primitive issues like clean water, electricity, and education which AAP believes to be their trump card.
By doing so, irrespective of the work done in the last five years, AAP has earned the distinction of being the only party that at least talk development. Although this hasn’t done an adverse impact on the loyal voter base of the opposition parties, it certainly has swung the votes of the fence-sitters towards them.
The times have changed and so has the politics. Arvind Kejriwal is no more the alternate face. He is no more challenging the status quo. He is the face and he is the status quo. Carefully picking up from the mistakes of his counterparts, Arvind Kejriwal today has become a full-blown politician with multiple
layers.
Since the inception of the party, many have disowned him. His former workers and friends who once were the pillars of the party were ousted. His mentor, Anna Hazare too has distanced himself. Even a section of voters who once viewed him through the lens of hope now has set aside a lens of betrayal for him. In a way, he has successfully turned into the Ram Gopal Varma of politics.
Every stakeholder of the Delhi elections, including the Chief Minister, is aware that the repeat of the dream mandate of 2015 is quite not possible. One of the many factors adding up to it is the current BJP electoral force being absent in the 2015 elections. In 2015, the BJP was recovering from the overwhelming success of the Lok Sabha elections and expected the Delhi voter to vote for them because of that success. Now, with the force it projects itself, BJP is the lone competitor for the AAP.
BJP is the only opposition in Delhi that can dent the mandate of the AAP. With Nationalism, their go-to
agenda, and Narendra Modi, their only face this election, the BJP is striving to stir some votes towards
them.
Despite this, Arvind Kejriwal continues to be the first option when Delhi goes to vote on the 8th of
February. Lack of agenda and a face in the campaigns of both the Congress and the BJP, we have a Lok-Sabha kind of situation – Who is the alternative to Kejriwal?
It is quite likely that the Aam Aadmi Party would return to the office on the 11th of February but once cannot underestimate the voter and hence cannot rule out the possibility of hung assembly if imagination is to be stretched too long.
