Delhi Polls:BJP’s ‘Nationalism’ narrative once again fails to resonate in state election

By Gautam Lahiri

Feb 13, 2029

New Delhi:Once again poll campaign narrative of BJP woven around the theme of nationalism for a state election has failed.

Whether the outcome of Delhi Assembly poll will set a new discourse in the national politics is to be seen in the near future.

The national ruling party tried to create a hype by branding the anti-CAA and anti-NRC protests as anti-national, but it seems to have backfired on the party.

The Aam Aadmi party(AAP) led by Arvind Kejriwal swept the Delhi Assembly poll for the second time and he became Chief minister for the third time . This was the first election after the passage of the new law Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) by Parliament which triggered protests in many cities of the country with the lead role played by women of the muslim dominated area of the capital known
as Shaheen bag. The BJP carried a high voltage campaign in last ten days before the poll and put the CAA for a test among the voters .

But, for the second time, BJP’s tally could not reach the double digit figure. Wheras Mr Kejriwal took a tactical line and did not fall into the trap led by the BJP in and around Shaeen Bagh, most other secular parties like Congress and the Left and Left leaning intelligentsia lent their support to the movement.

Mr Kejriwal was particular about his Government’s social welfare programme like free electricity upto 200 MW , free water and other developmental issues and successfully projected its success in the community health service and reform of the schools run by the state Government.

The AAP got 62 out of 70 seats five less than what they got in 2015. BJP came a distant second with only one 8 seats in their kitty. In the last election they got three seats only. The Congress contested all the seats but drew a blank for the second time . In fact there were serious differences within the congress party on how they should face the poll this time. Ultimately Congress President Sonia Gandhi did not campaign at all, and at the last moment, Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi Wadhera addressed three meeting and road show as almost like a symbolic fight.

The out come of the poll results clearly indicates that BJP got Laxminagar,Gandhinagar and Brijwasan seats as the Congress party played a role as spoiler. In other areas, the party could not put up a serious fight neither against BJP nor AAP.

The Chief minister of Delhi was insisting on his promise for the poor people and never joined issues which the BJP wanted him to. The saffron party hyped the campaign to polarise the voters like what they did in last Loksabha poll, but it yielded no results.

Though Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed two public meetings but did raise the issue of CAA or painted Shaheen Bagh protest as anti-national. Former BJP president and Home Minister Amit Shah even just before the counting of votes was seen very confident of winning at least 40 seats this time. But BJP’’s master strategist as popularly known as ”chanakya”” of Indian politics could not read the mind of the people. They asked all MPs and Chief minister to campaign in the capital city almost like carpet bombing which fell flat .

Privately some of BJP leaders admitted that Mr Kejriwal has touched the mind of the poor people of the Juggi-jhupri by announcing freebees and gave them a confidence that if he was in the seat of power of Delhi he could deliver more in future.

In one of the meeting organised in the Jhuggi by the local unit, senior BJP leaders watched that after the meeting was over most of them put on the cap of the AAM ADMI Party cap and went away. The leaders could read the writing on the wall after this incident, but unfortunately top leadership did not try to believe. They tried to propagate “”freebees later –nation first”, which did not cut ice much with the poor.

The BJP is trying to get solace that their vote shate has gone up at least by 4 percentage points and the party has got more seats than last time. But they are ignoring the fact their vote share of 54 percentage from the Loksabha has gone down miserably why?

In fact after the 2019 loklsabha poll, the BJP did not fare well in all Assembly polls held so far. Right from Haryana, Maharashtra and finally to Jharkhand they got beating. In Haryana they formed Government with the help of Chautala’s party but in other states, they had to bite the dust. Before these set of elections, they lost Madhyapradesh, Rajasthan and Chattisgarh.

Now the question comes before the party whether their strategy of polarisation politics has reached to a saturation point and the people are fed up with the discourse. IANS