Delhi: For Whom the Poor Vote

ANITA IS A STREET vendor in Sangam Vihar, one of Delhi’s largest slums. The 38-year-old has a sunny disposition but she frowns when asked about the Delhi Assembly election, and gets busy with making an omelette for a customer, and then serving him tea in a kulhad before she turns towards me. “Jhadoo,” she says, now smiling, referring to the symbol of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) that currently governs Delhi. Her customer Sushil Kumar Sharma soon joins the conversation, saying AAP is no longer the party it promised, but “as corrupt as any other party”. Sharma, who is there to run errands, says his problem with AAP is with the capitulation on its promises that gave people hope. “Nothing came out of it and our hope is shattered.”

Anita and Sharma continue to engage in debate as I walk away. That morning conversation in this dusty, crowded, poor neigh­bourhood of Delhi perhaps mirrors the mood across Delhi that goes to polls on February 5. While the results on February 8 will confirm who wins, this bitterly fought election campaign—in which leaders of various parties, especially AAP, Congress and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) at the Centre, have traded barbs—brings to the fore the biggest crisis that the ruling party of Delhi faces: an apparent loss of face among the middle classes. This, even when the poorest sections of society appear to largely repose faith in AAP thanks to its generous subsidy schemes and policies in education, healthcare and women empowerment.

Even so, a tour of some of Delhi’s poorest colonies, many of them unauthorised ones, proves that there is more to voter pref­erences than they are willing to say out loud. Residents are yet undecided about handing the AAP government a third consecu­tive term, although the majority of them agree that they have benefited from the 200 units of free electricity scheme, 20,000-litre free water scheme, free bus rides for women, and myriad other free schemes currently running in Delhi. A sizeable chunk of Delhi’s voters lives in slums, making their choice decisive for any electoral triumph.

AAP won two consecutive elections in Delhi, first in 2015, securing 67 of 70 seats and in 2020 with 62 of 70 seats in the As­sembly. Before that, AAP, founded in November 2012, became Delhi’s second-largest party in its electoral debut in 2013 by win­ning 28 seats. Its founder Arvind Kejriwal became chief minister with Congress’ support to keep BJP, which had won 31 seats, away, but resigned after 49 days in power protesting against Congress’ refusal to back the Jan Lokpal Bill.

But what makes the electoral battle tough this time round is a plethora of factors, based on voter responses across Delhi. In the poorest colonies, while many people, especially women, express gratitude for the gains they have made thanks to the emphasis on health and education by the AAP government, there is also a sense of fatigue that has set in, especially following the corruption charges against the top leadership of AAP that landed them in jail. The opinion of the middle classes about AAP has changed and it is for all to see, as psephologist Sanjay Kumar says. He adds that Congress is hardly in the picture in this election, just as it hasn’t been since 2015.

As someone who favours Congress at the national level, Edward Charles Joseph, a 32-year-old from Kishangarh village in South West Delhi who works as a customer service executive at a BPO in Noida and belongs to Delhi’s English-educated upwardly mobile middle class, says that he is slightly disenchanted with AAP but feels there is no other option in Delhi for those like him from minority communities.

A survey of slum clusters across Delhi seems to suggest that voters here too are getting influenced by middle-class sentiments and the initial euphoria that AAP would be a party like no other, which would transform the political landscape of India, has be­gun to wane. When AAP was created, expectations were huge. Kejriwal was looked up to as a messiah of sorts against the eco­nomic turmoil of the time that pushed more and more people to the margin amid economic hardship. Kejriwal was seen as a godsend to the people who resented their material conditions. AAP initially rose to the occasion by lowering the entry barriers for political entrepreneurship, and soon it fielded the common man, outside of any dynasty and the long history of political af­filiation, to seats of power.

According to an insider, AAP is leading in internal reviews of the election that the party does every three days, and yet voices from the ground indicate that the fight is far from over. Further­more, with the ruling BJP confirming that it is not going to dis­continue any of the welfare schemes in Delhi—the key catalyst for AAP’s popularity—the plot has thickened. None other than Union Home Minister Amit Shah said in the third and final part of the party’s manifesto for the Delhi elections that his party would continue all existing welfare schemes. In addition, he made more tempting promises: 50,000 government jobs, 20 lakh self-employment opportunities, 13,000 e-buses, free scooters and laptops for exceptional students, 3.5 lakh pucca houses for slum dwellers, regularisation of unauthorised colonies, besides free Metro travel for students, allowances for Hindu priests, and so on. Shah also offered financial aid for weddings of girls from eco­nomically weaker families, prompt measures to enhance Delhi’s air quality, and a Yamuna clean-up programme.

Apart from focusing aggressively on several seats in which BJP lost to AAP in 2020 by a small margin, the ruling party at the Centre seems to be a natural attraction for at least a section of vot­ers among the working classes who have previously voted for AAP because of its control over resources and capacity to fulfil their promises. “I voted for AAP last time, but we have to consider material gains for us when we vote, and so things are not as easy in deciding whom to vote for this time. Sometimes it is more conve­nient to vote for a party that is more powerful and can keep their word simply because they have power,” says Buddh Prakash, who lives in the Anna Nagar slum cluster near ITO. He emphasises that voters have to consider many factors before deciding whom to support in this election.

And yet, the impression from a tour of poor households and slum clusters is that AAP still enjoys the goodwill of the people irrespective of the aggressive BJP campaign that has more or less swayed middle-class voters.

Poonam is a 35-year-old self-employed woman who lives in the Krakola area of the Matiala Assembly constituency. She walks three kilometres to work in Dwarka to save money. Her husband works in a low-income job, she says, adding, “However, we can meet the ends thanks to the welfare schemes of Kejriwal. Without AAP, we wouldn’t have known about many welfare measures and schemes for economically backward sections like us. We are grateful to them for that.” She is glad she could send her children to school and that uniforms and books are free.

Of course, even among those who back Kejriwal, many have grouses. For instance, Uttam Datt, 52, a tailor who lives in Taimoor Nagar in the Okhla Assembly constituency, rues that he does not enjoy the electricity subsidy offered by AAP. He is a tenant and his landlord has placed a “sub-meter” due to which he is forced to pay a certain amount to the landlord who, he claims, overcharges him. Datt, who travels to work in Gurugram, resents such finan­cial pressures on a family like his that are denied so-called benefits. Keeping in mind this voter group, Kejriwal announced recently that AAP would address the concerns of tenants in terms of elec­tricity and water subsidies.

Similarly, Namita Talukdar, 47, who also lives close to Datt, and works as a house help and cook, regrets that bus drivers often do not stop at bus stops when only women passengers are there. She travels from her home to Jamia Nagar for work every day. The free bus ride is a plus, but the attitude of bus operators and their impunity is not something to cheer about, Talukdar points out. She adds that her landlord, too, has put a “sub-meter” on her side of the house and she pays around ₹10 per unit for electricity. “It is very expensive for us,” she complains.

Lata Indwar, a resident of Bhanwar Singh Camp, a slum area in the RK Puram Assembly seat, works as a household help. The 33-year-old says she is an out-and-out AAP supporter because she has been able to put her two children, aged 14 and 9, in a private school for free. “They speak English as good as their classmates from rich families. That makes me feel very happy,” she avers. The AAP government had been seen as strict in enforc­ing the Economically Weaker Section (EWS) quota in admissions to private schools in Delhi, a boon for those like Indwar who says she is determined to climb the social hierarchy in the next generation. She echoed the views we had heard earlier in Vimlesh, a mother of two, who said the education policies of the AAP government had ensured good education for her children thanks to which they are now in reputed colleges. Vimlesh belongs to the Deoli Assembly seat.

The tussle for power, however, is only getting tougher if one is to go by the variety of opinions of voters from slum clusters. For instance, Ravi Kumar, an auto driver from Sanjay Amar Colony near ITO, which falls within the Jangpura seat where AAP leader Manish Sisodia is in the fray, says Hindutva sentiments run deep this time round in the state polls. Proving his words are murals depicting aggressive-looking Hindu gods on the walls behind him. Sachin, a paan shop owner nearby, however, says that although the elec­tion campaign has turned far more acrimonious than earlier, AAP enjoys the backing of the poor notwithstanding erratic power supply and bad stretches of roads.

Such claims and counter-claims make the Delhi election campaign far more interesting than it has been in recent times.

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