AAP win may unite Opposition to take on BJP

KV Prasad

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, February 11

The nascent Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) today underscored the axiom that delivery with sharper focus on issues that touch everyday lives of the electorate and craftily avoiding entrapped by the narrative set by its principal challenger, the BJP, makes a difference.

Backed by spotlight on its signature initiatives in mohalla clinics, raising the bar for public-funded schools and inexpensive electricity, the AAP government led by Arvind Kejriwal kept engaging the electorate on how they can continue to garner benefit for themselves and their families by re-affirming faith in his outfit.

Backed by an efficacious social media team that constantly engaged with the electorate on issues that found resonance, AAP studiously kept away from being drawn into the vortex of a vitriolic campaign unleashed by the BJP that at times bordered on personal attacks.

The Shaheen Bagh protest that was employed as a huge stick by the BJP leaders and its team to trash the AAP may have got the BJP-led allies additional votes from its hardcore supporters but equally appears to have dissuaded the young to go with the party whom it reposed trust nine months ago in the Lok Sabha elections.

The AAP leadership dexterously circumvented the religious minefield while playing out that even Kejriwal is a practising Hindu who chants the Hanuman Chalisa and did not taken a stand publicly on the continuing sit-in at Shaheen Bagh.

After assiduously building an image as an anti-corruption crusader behind Anna Hazare, Kejriwal observed fast for a Lokpal and then turned an unusual Chief Minister during his first term by launching a dharna in New Delhi.

The 2013 victory propelled the AAP to begin punching in higher weight category in 2014 Lok Sabha and then adopting a perplexing approach in the 2017 Punjab Assembly polls. Today’s triumph victory should consolidate AAP’s resolve to test it wares in the border state with renewed vigour.

Since the landslide 67-seat victory in 2015, mellowed the technocrat-turned-politician and the second stint in office should stand him in good stead as an administrator who managed to keep governance on track amid intermittent duels with the Central Government and its representatives. Aftershock of the AAP’s resounding victory is bound to have effect on the political landscape in the country at a time when the Opposition is unable

to offer an effective alternative to the BJP under PM Narendra Modi.

The principal message from electoral setbacks for the BJP since 2019 Lok Sabha polls is that strong regional challengers can alter the equation for the hitherto unbeatable BJP electoral machine. Will it galvanise parties opposed to the BJP and set into motion a new political line up, is now the question.