With a clear verdict in three other states of Madhya Pradesh,
Rajasthan, and Chhattisgarh in favour of Saffron Party, Delhi is
leading towards a hung assembly, with a probable weak government and
strong, vocal and active checking opposition, can be seen as a new
experiment in Indian politics, with more day-to-day pressure on ones
who would be on ruling benches; seeming a win-win situation for
commoners and may result in trend-setting on national stage !
Punjab and Haryana are two states, after Delhi, which are eagerly
waiting for a AAP like phenomenon, if Kejriwal can read the written
on the wall, and can contend the tendency of his or his new party
men to be in power as early as possible (a natural one for all new
entrants of power politics), and wait till crop get ripe, then he
would surely emerge as a game changer on national level for long
time.
While PPP experiment failed in Punjab but similar AAP moment
succeeded in neighbouring Delhi only because the commoners find a
more credible replacement in revolutionary outsider image than in a
non-performing (when had chance) insider revolting and breaking up
when was on the verge of being thrown out; the former's credibility
is suspicious even till date.
And for Congress, after being check-mated, it has to start a deep
introspection and think about a strong and acceptable replacement of
its top faces, Dr. Manmohan Singh and Rahul Gandhi, for general
election 2014.
Its the time that new faces would be projected for both Party and
Government, but being a party centred on Gandhi Surname, its
practically impossible for them to shun that all together in one go,
and similarly all the ruling faces can't be replaced by installing
immature picks, nor it is possible to overcome the arrangement of
two power-centres set up 10 years back, by then party president
Sonia Gandhi; so all this required an optimum compromise.
I feel, on basis of my own independent analysis, a similar
arrangement with a new team guided by P. Chidambaram and Priyanka
Gandhi, if projected on time, might be able to contend the
anti-incumbency wave to much extent before much expected damage.
Anti-corruption crusader Kejriwal stuns Indian politics with
election surge
(Reuters)
- Some of the biggest celebrations of state election results in
Delhi on Sunday were not for the winners, but for a brand-new
anti-graft party that stormed India's establishment to win a close
second place.
Hundreds of activists wearing boat-shaped "Gandhi hats" bearing
the slogan, "I am a common man", gathered at the party's modest
headquarters, cheering and waving brooms in the air to symbolise a
clean-out of rotten politicians.
The upstart Aam Aadmi (Common Man) Party is led by mild-mannered
former civil servant Arvind Kejriwal who has vowed to end the
stranglehold of India's two largest parties in the capital and
beyond, and clean up politics in the process.
Kejriwal defeated the three-time chief minister of Delhi in her
own constituency and his party came close to winning control of the
city. The challenge for him now is to grow his movement in time for
national elections due by May - a task that could pit him against
leading opposition candidate Narendra Modi.
"I'm fully confident that finally the country will win, people
will win, democracy will come, and India will win," Kejriwal said,
addressing supporters after bringing to an end Dikshit's 15-year run
in the city.
The metropolis of Delhi is a city-state with a burgeoning
population of about 16 million.
The remarkable rise of the bespectacled Kejriwal from the ashes
of a street protest movement two years ago has shaken national
parties which, only days before Sunday's results, had dismissed the
buzz around the new party as hype.
It is uncertain how much the Aam Aadmi Party can grow in time for
the general election, especially since one internal survey ahead of
the Delhi election found that about a third of the party's
supporters wanted to see Modi as prime minister.
LOSSES FOR CONGRESS
The state results in Delhi, along with three other state
elections whose results were counted on Sunday, were a resounding
rejection of the Congress party, which has ruled India at a national
level for two consecutive terms.
In Delhi, the anti-Congress party vote was split between the Aam
Aadmi Party and Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the county's
second largest political group after Congress. The BJP won a
majority in three states but Kejriwal's strength resulted in a hung
legislative assembly in Delhi.
Kejriwal promises transparent political funding in a country
where parties often deal with unregistered bags of cash, and offers
populist policies, such as slashing electricity prices, that appeal
to both the middle class and poor Delhi residents.
The party's door-to-door campaigning on a shoestring budget
performed well against the multi-million-rupee advertising blitzes
and mass rallies of the Congress and the BJP.
Any growth of the new party outside Delhi could also eat into BJP
support.
Prominent party activist Atishi Marlena said the Aam Aadmi Party
had 309 committees across 22 of India's 28 states.
"We chose to focus all our attention in this first election in
Delhi," Marlena told a TV news network.
"We will be expanding to all other parts of the country and I
think the scope for alternative politics exists, and it's a trend
that we see not just in India, it's a trend that we are seeing all
over the world."
Rahul Gandhi, leading the national election campaign for the
ruling Congress party, and who as heir to the Gandhi-Nehru political
dynasty epitomizes India's political establishment, praised Kejriwal
on Sunday.
"I think the Aam Aadmi Party has involved a lot of people who the
traditional parties did not involve," he told reporters.
"We are going to learn from that and we are going to do a better
job than anybody in the country, and involve people in ways that you
cannot even imagine right now," Gandhi said.
(Writing by Frank Jack Daniel; Editing by Tony Tharakan and
Andrew Roche)
If Kejriwal would be smart enough, he would take the complete
mileage of the situations gifted to him by sitting in opposition and
remain as vocal and active as he is being projected for all next 5
years and get his party rooted deep in other states and in national
politics by utilizing his opposing position best of its use and
building and retaining his image of a replacement in minds of common
people of other states, and specially the neighbouring states of
north where he had best chances in future, while avoiding any
anti-incumbency and restrictions of being in government all
together.