Delhi Assembly Elections: Prashant Kishor's swing management

Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal waited for seven hours to file his nomination papers from the New Delhi Assembly constituency. That was a day after his roadshow pulled in a large number of cheer crowd to make him skip filing the nomination papers. The simple filing of nomination papers hogged the limelight for two days. The BJP played along, first by floating the strategy to surprise Kejriwal with a heavyweight challenger, only to spring a tame script in Sunil Yadav, who in his only electoral experience has lost councilor's elections. The discourse surrounding the Delhi Assembly elections have so far stayed around Kejriwal, portrayed as an indomitable and sometimes as a victim of the "dirty tricks" of the BJP, in line with Prashant Kishor's election management text book.

THE BJP veteran in Jharkhand Saryu Rai had long been a critic of the party colleague and former chief minister Raghubar Das. Rai would often put down dissent note in the Cabinet decisions. He would even admit lapses in events of alleged hunger deaths in the state. Das had also long been nursing an opportunity to get rid of him and found emboldened with his Maharashtra counterpart Devendra Fadnavis, who had also purged his rivals within the party during ticket distribution. Rai knew his fate, yet patiently awaited the Central leadership to be wiser.

The BJP Central leadership thought of paying a smart game by delaying Rai's candidature from Jamshedpur (West) Assembly seat. The party would have given the nomination by making him seen begging for the ticket, which, in turn, would have pleased Das. Rai didn't play along the script, and drifted away.

An old hand in politics, Rai had rubbed shoulders with the socialists, and counted on Bihar chief

minister Nitish Kumar as his pal. Over the years, he had cultivated an image of an intellectual within the BJP. He was popularly seen honest. In the face of his party insulting him, Rai took flight to an audacious course. He decided to challenge the chief minister Das in his Jamshedpur (West) constituency, which was among the only seven seats in the state in 2014 where the winning candidate had a margin of more than 50,000 votes.

Rai hogged the limelight. He was a victim. People sympathised with an honest and educated man who was dumped by the BJP at the insistence of an arrogant chief minister. Das stayed in Ranchi. He was miser in mixing with the people in his constituency. He was seen distant and inaccessible. The stage was set for the script of a simple man taking on an arrogant drunk on power. 

The script needed an able direction to stage the act on a large canvas. The director flew in from Patna with an army of 300 assistants. He was Prashant Kishor. His army brought in posters, leaflets and wrote slogans. They knocked at the doors to tell stories of an honest man fighting a lonely battle against an arrogant chief minister. In a matter of a few days, Rai was the only topic of discussion. The ripple effect soon electrified the whole state. Das had emerged a villain. Prime Minister Narendra Modi sought to cut down the damage. He patted his Cabinet colleague Arjun Munda more frequently in his election rallies. But the damage was done beyond the limits of Modi. 

IN 2015 the Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar had turned a BJP foe in the state Assembly elections. The BJP brimmed with an all conquering passion to win elections. The saffron outfit was facing a grand alliance of Nitish Kumar in the company of the Congress and the RJD. Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad Yadav had become the best pals. Modi was on an error making spree. He sought to flow the river of funds from the Centre to Patna to turn Bihar into Gujarat. Worse, he hit out at Nitish Kumar, and Prashant Kishor grabbed that to run the campaign to send samples of hair for DNA testing. The BJP's well oiled electoral machinery slipped into the muddy waters of Bihar even before the people cast their votes in the first phase of elections. 

Kishor now has perfected text book to turn the victims in politicians to giant killers. His company I-Pac is currently the best political slogan writers. He in the course of a few months can apply smart touches to the images of his pay masters to the liking of the people. Kejriwal is no more seen an anarchist. The Delhi chief minister in the course of a few months, Kishor came on board unofficially with Aam Admi Party (AAP) around August, last year, has been smiling from thousands of his pictures dotting the national capital. 

Kishor has worked on the image makeover of Kejriwal. The I-Pac workers are knocking at the doors of the people to sell the story of governance. They are selling the dream that Delhi in another five years would become a place of their aspirations: free of toxic air, classrooms for all the children, and healthcare for patients.     

Delhi Assembly elections: Data drift holds cues

Predicting poll outcomes by all accounts is a perilous job. Elections are analysed on past trends. Electorates have proven wiser than pundits more often. They aren't prisoners of the past, as they script history elections after elections. Amid the maddening electioneering, data stay firm with serenity, inviting political strategists to steer narratives to help their masters for smart politics. Data for Delhi suggest the air in the city smells of a cliffhanger of the poll outcome. 

THE ruling Aam Admi Party (AAP) had weaved a magical spell in 2015. Political rivals of the incumbent chief minister Arvind Kejriwal were left shell-shocked with the final scoreboard. That was 67-3 and a naught for the Congress. The BJP had the worst tally. The saffron outfit still bears the taunt. Climbing from an abyss like situation of the single digit figure five years ago to go past the half way mark of 35 would indeed be an unprecedented somersault. For AAP, it will equally be the groundswell of popular anger to slump from the level of 67 to 30s or less would be quite a fall with thud. 

The AAP isn't just another political outfit. The party was born after Anna Hazare made the political air of Delhi pregnant with negativism during 2012-13. Negativism midwifed anarchism. Kejriwal proved an undisputed icon of the politics of anarchism. His foes were left guilt-stricken, as they bent backwards to prove their credentials of honesty and probity in public life. They vowed to innovate and herald an honest and people friendly governance. The tribe of Sheila Dikshit, Harsh Vardhan and Kiran Bedi searched for wood when their boats had already sunk.   

The 2015 scoreboard read: AAP 54.3 per cent vote share and 67 Assembly seats; BJP 32.3 per cent vote share and 3 Assembly seats; and the Congress 9.7 per cent vote share and zero Assembly seats.

But that wasn't the maiden electoral venture of AAP in politics. Kejriwal cut off his umbilical chord with his godfather Anna Hazare to contest the December 2013 Assembly polls. The cadre of the AAP wasn't yet properly built. The party was still sloganeering. 

The 2013 scoreboard read: AAP 29.5 per cent vote share and 28 Assembly seats; BJP 33 per cent vote share and 31 Assembly seats; and the Congress 24.6 per cent vote share and eight Assembly seats.

In  span of a few months, Kejriwal built the cadre for AAP, with donations pouring from the affluent class within the country and abroad, helping him to maintain an army of well paid functionaries. With the likes of Kumar Vishwas, Prashant Bhushan, Yogendra Yadav leading the most vicious attacks on the mainstream political parties, Kejriwal strode as the alternative politics warrior, swearing to slay the rivals in the electoral battlefield. The Congress fell for the trap, and helped Kejriwal become chief minister. That bloated the persona of Kejriwal further, and soon he didn't need the Congress crutches. He read the politics well, and played the victim card to the hilt.

People flocked to Kejriwal, with 54.3 per cent vote share in 2015. His rivals turned into pygmies. The new political icon was born. But within a few months, drift set in the Kejriwal camp, as all those who bloated him into an extraordinary exponent of alternative politics parted ways after much breast-beating. 

TWO years later, the AAP faced the litmus test to repeat the magical spell of 2015. The BJP had been in power in the municipal corporation of Delhi for a decade, completing two full terms. The AAP cadre was mobilised to oust the BJP from the MCD, which, incidentally, has over 90 per cent connect with the people on a daily basis. The BJP was up against significant anti-incumbency. The BJP chief Amit Shah sought shelter in simple strategy; he just told the incumbent Councillors that they should climb the political ladder and focus on contesting the next Assembly elections. The BJP fielded fresh crop of the party workers.

The 2017 municipal elections' scoreboard read: AAP 26 per cent vote share and 49 seats; BJP 37 per cent vote share and 181 seats; and the Congress 21 per cent vote share and 31 seats.     

From 54.3 per cent vote share in 2015, AAP came down to 26 per cent; the BJP after staying firm with 33 per cent (2013) and 32.3 per cent (2015) rose to 37 per cent; and the Congress made a smart recovery from an embarrassing 9.7 per cent (2015) to 21 per cent. 

In 2017 again the AAP got another jolt. The outfit had found fertile ground in Punjab, and was seen on course to wrest power from Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD)-BJP combine. The Delhi drift had its own parallel in Punjab for AAP. The Congress' old horse Captain Amarinder Singh strode high to leave AAP huffing and puffing at distant second.             

PEOPLE undeniably have made distinctions between local and national elections. Chhatishgarh, Odisha and Jharkhand have shown that the electorate can with ease make distinct choices in Lok Sabha and Assembly elections. In Odisha, the electorate cast votes simultaneously for Lok Sabha and Assembly polls, and showed preferences for Narendra Modi in New Delhi and Navin Patnaik in Bhubaneshwar.  

Still, the data are significant, for Delhi appears on a certain course. The BJP swept the Lok Sabha elections in Delhi, with the perfect scoreboard of 7-0. The 2019 endorsed the previous scorecard, with scales going higher.

The 2014 scoreboard read: AAP 32.90 per cent vote share and zero seat; BJP 46.40 per cent vote share and seven Lok Sabha seats; and the Congress 15.10 per cent vote share and zero seat. 

The BJP had seen a negative swing of about 14 per cent in the 2015 Assembly elections. The AAP correspondingly registered over 21 per cent of positive swing, mostly gaining at the expense of the Congress. 

 The 2019 scoreboard read: AAP 18 per cent vote share and zero seat; BJP 56.58 per cent vote share and seven Lok Sabha seats; and the Congress 18 per cent vote share and zero seat.

For BJP, the scores in recent elections are 33 per cent (2013), 46.40 per cent (2014), 32.3 per cent (2015), 37 per cent (2017), 56.58 per cent (2019). In the five recent polls, the BJP hasn't gone down 32.3 per cent even when the party arguably shot in the foot by fielding an ex-cop Kiran Bedi in 2015. 

The AAP in contrast has seen wild swing of vote share from 18 per cent (2019) to 54.3 per cent in 2015. The graph is surely not steady. The AAP, in fact, came third in 2019. 

The 2015 elections in Delhi was a watershed moment. The BJP saw 14 per cent vote share knocked away in the face of the magical spell of AAP. Delhi was high on romance in 2015. The level of romance was two per cent higher in 2019, with adoration for a different entity. 

The BJP's worst case scenario could be another 14 per cent drift, which may leave the saffron outfit still with 42 per cent popular votes. To level, the AAP will need 24 per cent of the positive swing from 2019. And, that would surely be reckoned a daunting task.    

Delhi may throw a tantalizingly cliffhanger election outcome on February 11.

Return of anarchists

A week is long time in politics, the intellectually gifted British Premier Harold Wilson had said about 75 years ago. On January 21 and 22, the new star of Indian democracy -- Arvind Kejriwal -- improved upon Wilson's thought. Even two days are quite long time in politics .

And in those two days Kejriwal's Aam Admi Party (AAP) discovered that it's biggest campaigner, the media, was now actually baying for its blood. The trigger, off course, was the "Yes, I am an anarchist" claim of the wonder-boy of Indian politics.

Indeed, anarchism as a socio-political platform had long been subsumed by the communists. After the Bolshevik revolution, the Russian rulers had defeated them in some here and there wars. But the anarchists around the world continue to keep raising their voices particularly in Europe and America. That they have set their feet on the Indian soil is clearly a revelation. 

If not for a pattern, Kejriwal's declaration would have been ignored for an off the cuff remark. But a week earlier, his colleague, Prashant Bhushan, in an interview with The Asian Age, lamented that democracy in India is "minimal". That more than 70 per cent of eligible voters cast their votes in elections passed off as "minimal" democracy for Bhushan allows a pattern to take a shape. This lawyer of quite an eminence, who believes that there should be a referendum on deployment of security forces in Maoist affected areas and Jammu and Kashmir, is a theorist and along with Yogendra Yadav forms the ideological backbone of the AAP. 

And for that matter, one needs to revisit the anarchist school of thought, which took birth in as early as six century BC. One may also be surprised to know that Jesus Christ was considered among the initial advocate of anarchism. Conceptually, anarchism is a political philosophy that advocates stateless societies, with stress on self-governed voluntary institutions, and, for their followers, state is an unnecessary, undesirable and harmful institution.

The AAP's manifesto states that the MP/MLA Area Local Development Fund should be scrapped and that should be given to the Mohalla (locality) committee. A crucial fallback to anarchist thought could be seen here and for that matter Kejriwal's self-description was not an off the cuff remark. 

Zuangzi, who was among the initial anarchist theorist, believed "a petty thief is put in jail but a great brigand becomes the ruler of a nation". He must have been read by Kejriwal and Bhushan with much delight, as AAP's pamphlets hint a throwback to Zuangzi's thoughts. 

More important is Pierre-Joseph Proudhan, a French and first self-proclaimed anarchist, who published

"What is property" in 1840. His theory of "spontaneous order" wherein organisation emerges through peaceful evolution imposing its own idea of order without a central coordinator against the wills of individuals will find a parallel in the agitation of Somnath Bharti, Delhi's law minister, whom the AAP has stoutly defended against his racist and unlawful coercion of people of African nations. 

Even Kejriwal, when asked by this blogger in early 2013 on accusations against him that he had been spreading too much of negativity in the society without offering a platform to channel people's anger, had stated that "people will spontaneously throw an alternative". That did happen on December 8 and proved him right, but also cements his strong belief in the idea of anarchism. 

Indeed, it's a question worth pondering why people are so much in love with veiled anarchists at least in Delhi. Immediate answer would be that the existing political class had left a lot of political vacuum for new people with an idea of alternative politics to fill in.   

But was not India the land of socialism where the communists could not expand beyond Bengal, Kerala, Tripura and fringe areas of Punjab. That the socialism was so powerful as a political tool, it was enshrined in the Constitutions of India too can not be forgotten .

The political socialism, arguably in the Hindi heartland, emerged strongly, but is surely now gasping for breath. South of Vindhyanchal, politics took shelter behind linguistic identity, particularly in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh.   

The political heirs of socialist Ram Manohar Lohiya were Mulayam Singh Yadav in Uttar Pradesh and Lalu Prasad Yadav in Bihar. That Viswanath Pratap Singh showed up with a little cameo by arming the political socialism with Mandal identity effectively made the campaign caste centric, and alienated the upper castes, whose leaders, had spearheaded the march of socialism in Indian democracy till then.

Later, Mulayam Singh Yadav and Lalu Prasad further shrunk caste based socialism into family owned political enterprises. In 2014 Lok Sabha elections, as many as seven members of the Mulayam clan will be contesting elections, while his son, Akhilesh Yadav, and brother, Shivpal Singh Yadav, lead the state. For Lalu, his politics begins with self and ends with wife; and in between his brothers-in-law too appear.

And for that matter, the political class left a huge space for alternative politics; and that being occupied by anarchists is a telling blow to the delivery of the state in the recent years in terms of services and policies.

In the 19th and 20th century, anarchists were organizationally and ideologically crushed by the communists. But the Left, baring China and Russia, is fast becoming a relic of the gone era and that too for a good reason. The Congress in India is at least in its orientation a socialist and centrist party, while the BJP has over the years metamorphosed into a giant ideological body subsuming the best of the socialism while leaning on capitalism. And they being the only two national parties have to face the challenge of anarchists in the coming years.

President Pranab Mukherjee and BJP patriarch L K Advani are the only two political persons alive who can

understand ramifications of anarchists raising their heads in backyard. President knows that the challenge is serious and a threat to India's national interest. Thus he chose the occasion of the address to the nation on the eve of the Republic Day to warn the people against "popular anarchists".

The anarchists were defeated by the collective might of the communists in Europe and Russia. Now, they have to be defeated by the collective will of the people, for they are status quoist and populist at the expanse of the socio-economic growth.  

The gust

"Kitna vote se jeete (by how much votes they won)," asked a man sitting on stairs leading to Hanuman temple near Connaught Place. After giving him a short reply, we hurried past, only to stop to ask ourselves, who the man was. Running back to him, I asked for his name. "Gulshan," he said. "I sit here during day and evening, and sleep in a nearby hospital," he added. Next, I asked "did you vote" to which he said "no, don't have vote". 

He was a beggar. And he was asking about the performance of Aam Admi Party (AAP). 

Quite admittedly, we were shell-shocked. A beggar was curious to know the electoral fate of Arvind Kejriwal's AAP. Looking closely, Gulshan's eyes were yellow. He was wrapped in a torn quilt. There was no hope for life in his eyes. He was one of thousands who eke out their livings at Hanuman temple on the largess of devotees. 

Dance and drum at AAP office

The thought wave went fast back in past and recalled reporting Sheila Dikshit led Delhi government's determined efforts to make the national capital beggar free. That was in the run up to the Commonwealth Games. Then she even wanted to make Delhi a digital city. Also, Delhi a smoking free city. And so many others, all ideas borrowed from European countries, Hong Kong and Singapore. None materialized but left many thinking Dikshit as an apathetic leader.    

In her efforts to make Delhi a world class city, Dikshit forgot that a lot of people lived in the national capital, who were struggling to make their ends meet. And most of them were least bothered about Europe, Hong Kong and Singapore.   

And a lot of youth and women were least bothered about the garland of flyovers too. Because, the man who gave them to Delhi -- Ashok Kumar Walia (a doctor and a bachelor) -- was humbled by a rookie AAP greenhorn Vinod Kumar Binni from Luxmi Nagar Assembly seat. 

Dr Walia was hurt, for his people in the constituency were all that he had in his life. So, he shut in a room for three hours and was seen with tears led swollen eyes by his close aides.

On the way to Hanuman temple, the Connaught Circus was full of broom held by people, who looked hailing from the lower income groups. "These are all BSP men and women," I could not resist quipping. The BSP had polled 14 per cent votes in 2008 Delhi elections and five years later the rank and cadre were swept away by the Kejriwal magic. 

The broom that swept away the Congress in Delhi.

Clearly, a hell lot of people sensed that they did not figure in the scheme of things of Dikshit and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Price rise had finally broken all the prides of the middle and lower middle class.

But the Congress' slide from 43 seats to eight is quite a journey worth examination. As it appears, only the Muslims were unimpressed with Kejriwal's broom. So, not only JD (U)'s floater Shoib Iqbal but four Muslim candidates of the Congress too won. 

The Mughal Shah Alam's empire had famously shrunken from Chandni Chowl to Palam in the freezing winter of the dynasty founded by Babur and spread by Akbar. Dikshit, despite enjoying popular support, had shrunken her Delhi to the Lutyen's zone. And it was there that she tried to work her developments.

Shah Alam had seen a gust of Afghan and Maratha invaders in his shrunken Delhi. History revisits many a times, and, later we will know if Dikshit was the last Congress leader to rule Delhi.  

If not for Narendra Modi, Kejriwal would have been sworn in as the chief minister of Delhi. Undoubtedly, Modi blocked the Kejriwal gust to throw the BJP too with the Congress into the political abyss.  

Arguably, the Sunday gust intoxicated the Kejriwal gang. And, on the day of the people's mandate, they began talking of another elections. In their verbal jugglery, they had dished out sweeping comments and generalizations. To bow before the people's mandate is the duty of all political parties and rejecting the mandate by seeking another elections amounts to doubt people's will.   

Is it a French monarchy/. From the window, Kumar Viswas tells crowd updates and then shuts.

In a few days from now the magical debut of AAP in electoral politics will be researched word over. There are hardly any parallel. In 1980s, N T Rama Rao decimated the Congress in just six months. But then he was a popular film star and had cult following. There is no other parallel anywhere in the world. 

But take away Kejriwal, will AAP have any future. None, I guess. AAP is least a political party and more of a carry over of gust released by the powerful lungs of Anna Hazare. Alas, Hazare is a lonely man today. But life is like that. Ideas outgrow minds who birth them. Kejriwal is an idea, which was seeded by Anna, and nourished by anger of teeming millions of people. 

The gust by nature is short-lived. And that's the challenge before Kejriwal. He may recall W B Yeats' those lovely words: "I have spread my dreams under your feet, tread softly because you tread on my dreams".