How does one explain the phenomenal victory of the Aam Admi Party in the Delhi elections of February ? I would like to give my own analysis.
1. Delhi is broadly a city of traders and shopkeepers, i.e. middle and small businessmen. Earlier, these were represented by the B.J.P. while Congress represented big business. With the decimation of Congress, B.J.P. now represents big business, and AAP has filled in the vacuum, and now represents the small and middle business class ( Kejriwal himself declared in an election speech that he is a bania who knows how to do dhandha ).
2. An important issue for Delhiites was electricity and water bills which were often inflated. AAP was the only party which seriously addressed this issue.
3. The minorities solidly voted for A AP, as they felt insecure due to 'ghar wapasi',etc
4. The youth, who had voted en masse for BJP in the Lok Sabha elections in May 2014 as they thought ;vikas' meant creation of millions of jobs ( and jobs are all that youth are interested in ), were totally disillusioned as the jobs promised were not there, and so they vented their frustration by voting for AAP.
5. AAP presented itself as 'a party with a difference', characterized by transparency, accountability and democratic nature, which made it very attractive in this era of scams.
Now that it has come to power in Delhi, I submit that AAP will become, or rather has already become, like a conventional political party like others. Consider the following :
a.After the recent developments in which dissidents have been expelled, AAP, like other parties, has become dictatorial, with one person in command, and little scope for dissent. Those still in the party will obey the maxim 'Billee oonth le gayi, to haan ji haan ji kehna', i.e.' If the leader says that a cat has carried away a camel, just say : of course, of course'. In other words, become a sycophant, if you wish to survive.
b. Lumpen elements are used as musclemen or bouncers to silence dissent, if need be by strong arm methods, like Hitler's S.S.
c. Loyalty, not principles, is the most important thing. So the party functionaries and MLAs will be given a long rope, and a Nelson's eye will be turned by the leader to their wrong doings as long as they are loyal and don't cross certain limits.
Mr. Kejriwal is not a fool. He knows that corruption is so deeply entrenched in the system that anyone who seriously tries to suppress it will get into trouble, as the powerful people will gang up against him. So he will pay only lip service to fighting corruption, by, say, suspending some clerks, while not genuinely going after the big sharks.
But this will be contradictory to his professed principles. You cannot fool all the people all the time.
And so I predict that AAP will become very unpopular in a very short time when people see through the great gap between what it preaches and what it practices.
