70 seats, an entire nation intrigued

Non-stop political commentary, daily twists and turns, everyone has an opinion on which way Delhi will vote on February 7. For the BJP, winning the election has almost become a referendum on the Centre''s performance, even as AAP aims to redefine the political narrative again and Congress looks to gain lost ground.

KV Prasad

Elections in Delhi always attract attention in the country more than those to any other state assemblies. Even though the city does not enjoy the powers of a full state, by virtue of being the national capital, most people have a stake or a keen interest in it.

The 15-year rule of the Congress ended in Delhi, with no single party winning a clear majority. The Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) formed the government with the support of the Congress.

Curiosity in the February 7 polls got accentuated by the stunning verdict the nascent Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) secured in December 2013. The result left most political pundits tearing up the paper on which calculations were made. A hung Assembly followed by an experiment by a decimated Congress party to support the AAP from outside failed due to the faulty computation and missteps taken by the rookie-government headed by Arvind Kejriwal.

As for the Bharatiya Janata Party along with its ally, the Shiromani Akali Dal, the results fell short of the requisite majority. Attempts to fix it by encouraging floor crossing could not take off for two reasons - the high moral ground the BJP took before the then impending Lok Sabha polls of being a party with a difference and later due to internal wrangling between city party leaders. Now, a year later, the battle of the ballot in Delhi is a direct fight between a gritty AAP and an equally determined BJP to wrest control of the 70-member Assembly. Curiously, the Indian National Congress does not appear to be in the contest at all. For the record, national parties like the Bahujan Samaj Party, the Communists and Nationalist Congress Party are also in the fray. Delhi has become yet another battleground for the Narendra Modi-Amit Shah combine, who have had an unenviable record of wresting assemblies post-Lok Sabha polls in Haryana and Jharkhand, managed to form a coalition government in Maharashtra and are on the verge of setting up another in Jammu and Kashmir.

A city government may not matter much in terms of the national political calculus, especially since the BJP has won all the seven Lok Sabha seats from Delhi. However, an electoral setback could be interpreted as a rejection of the policies being pursued by the Central government, which has had an eight-month run besides running the Delhi administration through the Lieutenant Governor since February 2014.

The BJP has pulled out all stops and rushed in reinforcements from the states it is in power, including Haryana and Madhya Pradesh, with the Chief Ministers leading campaigns targeting specific groups from the regions. Union Ministers too have been deployed in numbers to ensure that no ground is left uncovered, amid reports of dissension and anger among the city BJP workers and leaders.

In an unusual departure from the recent trend it adopted in Haryana, Jharkhand, Maharashtra and J&K by not projecting any leader, the BJP declared firebrand former top police officer Kiran Bedi as the chief ministerial contender. While this fanned discontent among the city BJP leaders, induction of former Congress leaders Krishna Tirath and SC Vats added to it.

The AAP launched a systematic campaign across all media - print, electronic and new media - besides relying on the traditional street corner, door-to-door and mass mobilisation campaign, explaining the reasons why Kejriwal resigned after 49 days in office and sat on protests. The party is seeking a majority and results of the battle royale will be out on February 10.

2014 LS elections

BJP ahead in 60, AAP in 10
In Delhi, the BJP won all seven parliamentary seats — just five months after the Delhi Assembly elections in December of 2013 — and was ahead in 60 Assembly constituencies and AAP in 10 of the total of 70.

Vote share of both up
If the BJP managed to increase its vote share by more than 12 per cent from the Assembly election to 46.4 per cent, the AAP vote share stood at 32.9 per cent, up from 29.3 per cent in the Assembly election.

Congress way down
Both the BJP and AAP gained in the Lok Sabha polls because the Congress’ vote share went down by 10 per cent from what it got in the 2013 Assembly election (25 per cent).