AAP made a good debut in Delhi. The party was announced on 2/10/2012, birthday of Mohandas Gandhi. It was formed on 26/11/2012 at Constitution Club, on the anniversary of adoption of India’s Constitution on 26/11/1949. In Delhi’s Legislative Assembly elections the party won 28 out of 70 seats and came second. It proved cynics wrong.
Enemies of AAP had tried tricks to defame AAP. There was a sting operation. That failed. There were accusations of receiving foreign funds. AAP mentioned the donations they received on their web site. Other parties did not do that. AAP stopped taking donations after the sum reached 20 crore rupees, saying that is all that they needed and did not want more. Some said AAP was a middle class phenomenon. It did not have appeal among poor. AAP got votes from poor. Some said AAP was a spoiler. Anti-Congress votes that would have gone to BJP would go to AAP and Congress would benefit. They were wrong.
AAP members campaigned extensively. They used social media. Broom was their symbol. They consulted people and had 70 constituency specific manifestos and one common manifesto.
AAP leaders based on their opinion polls expected their party to win 38-50 seats. They fell short of majority. BJP emerged first with 32 seats. They too used social media, perhaps more than AAP. Congress won 8 seats. They had 43 seats. Arvind Kejriwal contested against Sheila Dikshit, thrice chief minister of Delhi, and won by 25,864 votes. He had accused BJP and Congress of match-fixing and BJP fielding weak candidates against Sheila Dikshit. AAP had decided Arvind Kejriwal was their strongest candidate and he should contest against Sheila Dikshit. On voting day Sheila Dikshit had said “Who is Arvind Kejriwal? What is AAP? Can you call it a party that can be compared to the Congress or BJP? AAP is generally talked about because the gentleman and the party have a way of projecting themselves?”
Where did AAP survey go wrong? They missed the target by a minimum of 10 seats. May be psephologists should not do opinion polls of their parties when they join a political party. GVL Narasimha Rao’s predictions used to be right. After he associated with BJP his predictions started to go wrong. Yogendra Yadav used to be generally right. After he joined AAP, he missed the target.
Congress leaders had said AAP was BJP’s B team. BJP leaders had said AAP was Congress’ B team. AAP proved it was nobody’s B team. Arvind Kejriwal said it was not his victory but victory of common people who are against corruption.
Arvind Kejriwal said AAP will not form the government; they will not support to take support from BJP or Congress. BJP being the single largest party has to form the government. BJP and Congress can come together and they have common ideology of corruption. AAP will play responsible opposition. Harsh Vardhan, leader of BJP, said they do not have majority and they do not want to break other parties, they will sit in the opposition. Perhaps for the first time in India’s history we have a curious case of two leading parties refusing to form government.
BJP needed four more MLAs. They could not expect support from JD(U) MLA. Another MLA was a BJP rebel candidate who had contested as an independent and won. He put his conditions for support. He is a fan of Narendra Modi. He should ask him to support BJP. He should be made Deputy CM. No wonder, Harsh Vardhan did not want to form government.
If no party forms government there has to be another election. That has happened before. It happened once in Kerala, once in Bihar. Outside India it happened in Greece. A minority government can last a full term. Some members can abstain from voting. P. V. Narasimha Rao did that. Once, BJP voted against him. Janata Dal abstained. Second time Janata Dal voted against him. BJP abstained. Third time he survived by defections of MPs from the party headed by Ajit Singh and votes of JMM MPs who were paid cash for votes. If there are elections again in Delhi results can be different.
AAP has plans for fielding candidates of 2014 general elections. Victory in 28 seats of Delhi gives AAP hope.
Nice One!!!