What TV doesn't, print can't; we deliver.
What TV doesn't, print can't; we deliver.
Keeping away from the issues related to minority community like Bilkis Bano case, CAA, NRC and Delhi Riots where AAP’s councillor Tahir Hussain is an accused, led the AAP loosing some seats in Muslim dominated areas, but it helped in building the image of AAP as supporters of Hindu voters. Kejriwal’s proposal of putting Ganesh-Laxmi photo was a strategical.
Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has the unique ability to project each of its electoral forays into a statistically significant win. While they celebrated the meagre wins on 5 Assembly seats in Gujarat for elevating them to the status of a national party, the decisive MCD election victory was pitched as “a win against the world’s largest political party”.
While these might be just ways of shaping public perception around how AAP’s expansions are looked at, one has to give credit where it is due.
AAP has won for the fourth time in Delhi – this time defeating Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) that ruled for 15 years at the civic body of the national capital. As per the final tally, the AAP has got 134, BJP secured 104 and 9 seats of the MCD have gone to the Congress and 3 seats won by the independent candidates in 250 member body of the MCD.
Poll Pundits are citing one of the big reasons of AAP victory is 15 years of anti incumbency. However, there are many more reasons that went in AAP’s favour and ensured its victory. The attempts at horse-trading by parties notwithstanding there are specific reasons that helped AAP score a victory in the civic polls.
Strategy of ‘Kude ka pahad’ : The issue of three landfills – Bhalswa, Okhla and Ghazipur – was picked up by the AAP and pitched aggressively during the election campaign.
BJP looked agenda less : The BJP ruled for 15 years. However, it failed to recount the development works which they did during its rule. Apart from cleaning sewage and drains the BJP had nothing to show.
MCD’s financial crunch : The MCD was trifurcated in the year 2011 to tackle with the problem of financial crunch in Delhi MCD. But it never worked – in these 15 years BJP failed to revive the financial crisis in the MCD. During Covid and still, workers of MCD kept holding protests demanding their salaries.
Slogan ‘Kejriwal ki sarkar, Kejriwal ka parshad’ : This slogan launched by the AAP two week before the MCD election helped the AAP in building up pace during election campaign. AAP is ruling in Delhi’s 70 member assembly house for 7 years.
Freebie factor : The magic of giving free electricity and water in the state and announcing the same in Himachal and Gujarat helped the voters of Delhi give a chance to AAP
AAP ‘Hindutava avataar’ : Keeping away from the issues related to minority community like Bilkis Bano case, CAA, NRC and Delhi Riots where AAP’s councillor Tahir Hussain is an accused, resulted in AAP loosing some seats in Muslim dominated areas. But it helped in building the image of AAP as supporters of Hindu voters. On the occasion of Diwali festival, Kejriwal’s proposal of putting Ganesh-Laxmi photo on Indian currency buttressed this image.
In 2017, BJP had won the elections despite Kejriwal wave as AAP had won consecutive Assembly elections of Delhi. The BJP got 181 seats. AAP debuted with 48 seats and Congress got 30 seats. In terms of vote share BJP stood at 36 percent, AAP’s 26 percent and Congress’s 21 percent.
In this elections, the voting percentage of both the parties have increased from 2017 – as BJP got 39.09 percent while AAP got 42.05 per cent. The Congress’s vote share declined to 11.68 percent.
