A House of Mirrors

PRIME MINISTER NARENDRA MODI’S lengthy speech at Delhi’s Rohini on January 5 contained a few sharp points aimed at a constituency that has proved a reliable vote bank for the Aam Aadmi Par­ty (AAP). Ask residents of hutments who received possession of flats in the new Swabhiman (Self Respect) Apart­ments in Ashok Vihar in north-west Delhi what they feel about the change in their lives, he said. “Will you go to every slum and jhuggi and tell them that they will also get a pucca (permanent) house?” Modi asked a responsive crowd. A little later, he elabo­rated on his theme, promising no welfare scheme will be shut down should the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) win the February 5 Delhi Assembly election. It was an important assurance, given that AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal has repeatedly warned that the schemes, which he does not hesitate to describe as “free” while asserting they empower people, would be withdrawn if BJP were voted to office. “I want to assure you that no scheme of people’s welfare will be stopped,” Modi told the crowd.

The prime minister embellished his statement, pledging that not only would the schemes that benefit the poor and the middle class be continued but they would be cleansed of corruption. This pro­vided Modi the opening to remind voters that a party born of an anti-corruption movement for a Lokpal—an ombudsman to investigate cor­ruption in high places—was enmeshed in graft cases running into hundreds of crores of rupees. He iterated a play on AAP as he had at a previous rally, referring to the party as “aapda” or disaster.

Attendance at public meetings is not an ad­equate indicator of the public mood, but Modi’s rallies have drawn lively crowds so far. The response of Kejriwal and AAP has been to accuse BJP of being anti-poor and pointing to deterioration in law and order in the city despite the police being under the control of the Centre. Kejriwal has sought to counter the charge that a leader who took pride in being a “kattar imandar (hardcore hon­est)” has been found to be “kattar beimaan (hardcore dishonest)” by recounting the number of classrooms, colleges and clinics the AAP government has constructed.

The gong has been struck with the Election Commission (ECI) announcing the date for polling, with results on February 8. The battle of narratives has been well and truly joined with Modi and the BJP media campaign zeroing in on the Comptroller and Audi­tor General’s (CAG) reported account of expenditure incurred in a lavish makeover of the official residence Kejriwal occupied when he was chief minister. The tag sheesh mahal (glass palace) has stuck and BJP hopes to turn the opulence of the house on Delhi’s Flagstaff Road into a powerful symbol of excess and indulgence at taxpayers’ expense. Both Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah have focused on the sumptuous residence with its costly trappings, ar­guing the residence was done up even as the capital was grappling with Covid and oxygen shortages in hospitals. At the time of the deadly 2021 second wave, AAP had accused the Centre of “denying” Delhi its share of oxygen supplies even though the Delhi govern­ment did not set up any plant in the interval between the initial Covid onslaught of February-March 2020 and the second wave. Media accounts of the CAG report details large sums spent on pur­chase of television sets, carpets, curtains, and even a mini bar. The report is learnt to have listed kitchen equipment worth `40.08 lakh, a TV console costing `20.34 lakh, a silk carpet for `16.27 lakh, and gym equipment for `18.52 lakh. “This work was completed in 2022 at a cost of `33.6 crore. This is 342% more than the estimate. Such a big scam was committed for Arvind Kejriwal’s ‘sheesh mahal,’” said BJP MP and spokesperson Sambit Patra, adding that the advertising spend on some of the Delhi government’s programmes was much more than the actual expenditure on the initiatives.

AAP responded to the BJP attacks, seconded by Congress as well, with Chief Minister Atishi claiming that the Public Works Department (PWD) served her an eviction notice a day before ECI announced the polls on January 7. “When I be­came the chief minister, BJP threw my belongings on the road. They can snatch our houses, stop our work, but they cannot stop our passion for working for the people of Delhi,” she told the media, with Kejriwal also throwing his weight behind her, saying BJP had expelled Atishi from her residence.

Heated exchanges with BJP saw the party’s social media chief Amit Malviya accusing the chief minister of misleading the public. “She was allotted Sheesh Mahal on October 11, 2024. She still hasn’t occupied it because she doesn’t want to offend Arvind Kejriwal. Hence, the allotment was withdrawn, and two more bungalows were offered to her instead,” Malviya said. Previously, AAP had claimed that Atishi’s belongings had been removed from the Flagstaff Road residence but officials had clarified that the bun­galow had not been handed over to PWD as per rules. PWD had then carried out an audit of the bungalow, the details of which became subject of media reports and political accusations and counter-accusations. Though AAP’s attempt is to present Atishi as a victim of BJP’s high-handedness, accounts of the expenses incurred on the residence continue to swirl in discussions in TV studios and on social media, which does not augur well for AAP. Since the offer of the residence stands withdrawn, it is difficult to see how AAP leaders will be able to fulfil their claim that they will conduct a tour of the residence to expose alleged untruths about its posh interiors.

Apart from charging BJP with obstructing the Delhi govern­ment’s programmes, AAP has sought to deflect cases of corrup­tion that sent its top leaders to jail by claiming the allegations are a conspiracy hatched by the Centre to bring governance in the city to a halt. Campaigning in Haryana last year after his release from jail on bail, Kejriwal said BJP felt threatened by his work in Delhi and AAP’s electoral win in Punjab. Fearing AAP would do well in Gujarat and Haryana, the Centre had acted to stop him and his work and put him in jail, he had said. The pitch did not work in Haryana. Earlier, when he was out on bail to campaign for the Lok Sabha elections, Kejriwal had similarly appealed to Delhi’s voters to support him, saying that if AAP did not do well, he would be sent back to jail. That time too, the appeal did not move voters.

The Delhi election will see a clash of meta narratives of corrup­tion and governance but a lot depends on micro-management at constituency level. The state election commission undertook a massive exercise to weed out fake and duplicate voters but ac­cording to some observers, this has met with limited success. Al­though AAP criticised the revision of electoral rolls on grounds that voters are being “deleted”, cleansing of voter rolls is needed with some estimates flagging between 15,000-20,000 dubious or ineligible voters in most constituencies. Given AAP’s permissive stance on illegal immigrants and the spread of unauthorised slums and colonies, BJP has raised the need to scrutinise and clean up the rolls. Though the effectiveness of the effort is being debated, AAP’s reaction indicates it fears an adverse impact with the New Delhi district election officer complaining of party leaders pressuring him to reveal personal details of those objecting to voter-list entries. All parties are paying close attention to wooing voter segments such as Sikhs, Jains, Christians, Poorvanchalis, South Indian communities, Odiyas and Gujaratis who make up significant blocks of the elec­torate. Elections turn on such mobilisation of votes, experienced campaigners say, pointing out that Delhi’s Assembly constituen­cies are small and, despite dense population, often witness close results. This is where the organisational aspect comes in and in the past AAP has been successful in activating its network of party workers and activists to its benefit, working on voters to present Kejriwal as the local choice. BJP is not going to announce a chief ministerial nominee as this might be counter-productive given the factionalism that has dogged the city unit. The current BJP Delhi chief, Virendra Sachdeva, a low-profile leader prior to his elevation, has ensured the party viewpoint registers with the media and has avoided personality clashes in an organisation bristling with past and current leaders, many senior to him. BJP’s success in Haryana and Maharashtra had a lot to do with synergy between state party organ­isations representing different interests and it cannot afford to fall short in the capital.

Delhi elections have often been triangular, a facet seen to help BJP as it presages a division in voters aligned against it. The Lok Sabha polls last year though were a direct fight between BJP and AAP-Congress, which the saffron camp won con­vincingly. The obvious factor was Modi’s central­ity to the national elections but BJP’s success in garnering 54.3 per cent votes despite a 2.5 per cent dip over 2019 will worry AAP. It can be argued that Congress choices for the seats allotted to it were not inspiring but a consolidation of anti-BJP votes should have made the fight closer. The fact that it was not raises the question whether there was an underlying chill towards AAP alongside the prime minister’s popularity with Delhi vot­ers who see him as their choice for the Centre. Campaigning is yet to begin in full swing and it might be hard to fathom just yet whether Congress will make the election genu­inely tri-cornered. Some Congress nominees hold out the promise of three-way contests, but not all. The party’s candidates in some seats do not seem convincing and BJP leaders say they are not count­ing on triangular fights. In the 2020 Assembly election, Congress’ vote share fell to a low of 4 per cent and this meant that despite an increase of 6 per cent in BJP’s vote share, the party still won only eight seats. This time round, Congress’ impact could prove to be seat-specific, with strong nominees like Alka Lamba, Sandeep Dikshit and Mukesh Sharma influencing results or even winning. BJP’s first list has reposed faith in AAP leaders and former Congress members who crossed over, a strategy that has at times worked but which has also delivered sub-par results. BJP functionaries feel a positive view of the party will help candidates and these nominees will add to the accretion of votes.

AAPArvind KejriwalAssembly Elections 2025BJPDelhi Assembly ElectionNarendra Modi