Beyond the White Noise

AHEAD OF THE 2014 Lok Sabha polls, a keen sense of anticipation had gripped the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and its supporters. The party’s leading lights, including some who have since left AAP, declared winning 100 seats was possible. AAP’s leader Arvind Kejriwal directly challenged the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) prime ministerial nominee Narendra Modi in Varanasi. AAP supporters wearing the party’s trademark Gandhi cap with the broom symbol would loudly proclaim at social gatherings: “He is losing.” The allusion to Modi left onlookers bemused and in the end AAP underestimated the BJP leader’s popular support and vastly overestimated the political returns of the India Against Corruption movement that it had emerged from. BJP won a re­sounding victory and, according to AAP insiders, Kejriwal found it difficult to even watch the results on television.

The AAP leadership had dissolved the government the party had formed in Delhi with the support of Con­gress in 2013 ahead of the Lok Sabha polls ex­pecting to benefit from a sympathy wave in its favour. Brand Modi proved too powerful and the antici­pated surge failed to materialise. BJP won all the capital’s seven seats, leaving AAP licking its wounds. This was when BJP made its second mistake. The first was when it became the single-largest party with 32 seats with ally Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) after the 2013 Assembly election, just three short of a majority, and still decided to sit it out. Support could have manifested from the ranks of eight Congress MLAs and two other legislators who won as Independents and Janata Dal (United), JD(U), contestants. After winning the 2014 General Election, BJP failed to lift Central rule on time and opt for a swift election in the wake of the pro-Modi sentiment. When the election was finally held in February 2015, AAP won a landslide 67 seats in a 70-member Assembly. It returned to office in 2020 aided by Congress’ near-total collapse and BJP, despite increasing its vote share, could win just eight seats. A plethora of ‘free’ schemes that included zero electricity and water bills for large sections of the population solidified AAP’s support among the middle class and the city’s poorer population. Modi was fine for the Centre but Kejriwal was the choice for Delhi.

This time round, the Delhi election due in February prom­ises to be an even fiercer contest. Kejriwal and other top AAP leaders have been in jail for alleged acts of corruption. The AAP versus BJP rivalry, never marked by the Queensberry Rules, is turning into a mud-wrestling contest. BJP has launched a hard-hitting attack on Kejriwal, using images of the luxuri­ously appointed official residence he occupied as chief minister, labelling it ‘Sheeshmahal’ (glass palace) to claim that the leader’s commitment to being an aam aadmi (common man) is a deceitful mirage. Kejriwal has in turn warned voters that BJP will discon­tinue the free schemes if elected to office and arrests of top AAP leaders were intended to halt Delhi’s governance. In a do-or-die battle, the stakes are very high for Kejriwal. He campaigned for the Lok Sabha elections urging voters to ensure a win for the Opposition, saying he would be sent back to jail if BJP won. Delhi went 7-0 in BJP’s favour again as it did in 2014 and 2019. He cannot risk being seen to lose in the ‘people’s court’ again even as his bail conditions forced him to nominate AAP leader Atishi as chief minister. The slew of graft cases against AAP leaders has dimmed the party’s appeal among the middle class which is suffering the consequences of urban decline, municipal inefficiency and encroachments. The city’s slums and jhuggi-jhompri (shanties), once an unshakeable AAP bastion, also bore the brunt of civic woes, particularly during the harsh summer when Kejriwal was in jail and did not nominate anyone as chief minister in his place.

The Delhi election has consequences beyond daily jousting between AAP and BJP. Though BJP governments have adopted direct benefit transfer (DBT) schemes, such as cash support for women and scholarships for students, in a big way, they have not announced loan waivers, free travel on public transport, or promised to legislate minimum support prices (MSP) for crops de­spite a long-running agitation by Punjab’s farm unions.

The question, odd as it might sound in the midst of shrill sound bites, is one of governance. AAP’s handling of public services has pushed the Delhi Transport Corpo­ration(DTC) andtheDelhiJalBoard (DJB) under a mountain of debt. Public contracts are mired by corruption charges. A voter who might be a beneficiary of the city government’s claim that more than 70 per cent of electricity consumers do not have to pay bills might wonder about the cost of such populism as roads, sanitation and civic infrastructure suffer. The emotive elements that have marked state elections, such as illegal immigrants and the Hindutva-appeasement fault line, will no doubt play their part. The aftermath of the 2020 anti-Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) agitation and the 2022 Jahangirpuri riots that took place on Hanuman Jayanti is far from forgot­ten. The tensions and resentments simmer and are not uncon­nected to the larger issue of governance. The 2022 municipal election results were a warning bell for AAP. The party displaced BJP in the corporation but only just, winning 134 of 250 seats. The 11.6 per cent vote secured by Congress was a key factor in denying AAP bigger margins. This time round, Congress seems determined to put up a fight and though the party has weak­ened, its vote share might again prove crucial.

The next electoral contest, an equally engrossing one, is in Bihar and is scheduled for the end of the year. In 2020, BJP and JD(U) returned to office but the results had a twist. Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) won just 43 seats, down by 28 while BJP’s tally of 74 marked an increase of 21. Despite the skewed numbers, Kumar continued as chief minister but his discontent grew as JD(U) leaders spoke of “conspiracies” against the party and finally in August 2022, he rejoined forces with Lalu Prasad’s Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD). Then he did another flip-flop in January 2024 when he got back with BJP. The partners won 30 of the state’s 40 Lok Sabha seats but this was a decline of nine. The I.N.D.I.A. bloc led by RJD picked up important seats and evidence suggested that BJP did the heavy lifting for the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), helping JD(U) cross the line. But though JD(U) seemed impacted by incumbency, its presence in the NDA camp helped BJP which might have won more seats on its own but could not have prevented I.N.D.I.A. from improving its numbers. And Kumar’s departure from I.N.D.I.A. hurt the Opposition alliance’s claims to being the national alternative to Modi. This time, the unhappiness of voters with Kumar might continue to be discernible, but BJP’s strong return to political centre­stage after the sub-par Lok Sabha performance has created fresh problems for the Opposition. NDA will face the Assembly elections under the leadership of Kumar, the state’s longest-serving chief minister, having been sworn in nine times. Will BJP seek a change in terms there­after? The answer is that it is unlikely to do so as long as Kumar is the leader of JD(U).

The Opposition’s task is cut out. It will have to look out for any BJP missteps to seize the initiative. The anti-BJP political spectrum will watch the 2025 Union Budget closely to see if it does enough to revive growth that fell to 5.4 per cent last quarter. The government has argued that the curve has flattened and the economy will do better. At the same time, while last year’s Budget sought to address the imperative of employment, there is a need for a strong pro-reform message that encourages industry, spurs innovation and attracts investment. The messaging is closely linked to the Modi model’s claims on delivering sound governance and is as essential to BJP’s political messaging as is its criticism of Congress’ focus on caste census and minority mobilisation. Any slip in the coun­try’s economic momentum gives the Opposition a chance to get back in the reckoning and the challenges for the gov­ernment are not just internal as wars continue to rage in the Middle East and in Ukraine placing global trade under stress.

Politics in 2025 will engage, frustrate and beguile in equal measure as issues like the Uniform Civil Code (UCC), reform of Waqf boards, and One Nation, One Election gain salience. The heady mix is everything that makes India’s democracy argumentative and substantial.

Arvind KejriwalelectionsForecast 2025Narendra ModiNitish KumarpoliticsTejashwi Yadav