In Indian politics now one of the most crucial debates has become the politics of freebies or revadi. It is the fundamental political pitch of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). However, the AAP believes that these are not freebies but welfare schemes targeted at every section of people. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP and the grand old Congress party are unable to combat this freebie pitch. While the BJP is directly attacking this poll ploy, the Congress is majorly divided and unprepared to deal with the political challenge
After Narendra Modi became the prime minister of India the politics of the state changed eventually. The political ideas and ideologies of the UPA era do not work any more. Similarly, the BJP has come up with new political ideas and their own ideology. The key agenda of politics has become hyper-nationalism and Hindutva. The Congress party failed to put up a parallel idea to combat the BJP. On one hand, the grand old party is declining across India and on the other hand, The party is repeatedly failing to address the people by presenting a different model of governance.
Under the Gandhi family, the Congress party is stuck with attacking Narendra Modi and the ideology of Hindutva. The party which brought freedom to India is unable to present its nationalist views. But the case of Arvind Kejriwal and the AAP is completely different. Kejriwal appeared in Indian politics like a storm, via the India Against Corruption movement. In the initial days of coming to power, Kejriwal took on Narendra Modi one-to-one. Everybody will remember that to take on Narendra Modi the AAP national convenor fought against him from the Varanasi Lok Sabha constituency.
Following the defeat, Arvind Kejriwal became silent against Narendra Modi and the BJP‘s politics as a whole. However, after the Delhi 2020 assembly elections and following the Punjab assembly elections, Kejriwal is back to take on the BJP. The historic victory of the Punjab assembly elections held early this year changed the political future of the AAP and its national convenor.
Today the AAP is the only political party after the Congress which has state governments in two states. Significantly, both the states are part of the Hindi heartland, whereas the Congress only governs Rajasthan in the Hindi heartland.
At the time of the Punjab elections, the BJP did take a certain stand against Arvind Kejriwal‘s politics but those were not very concrete. In the case of Delhi because the power is fragmented the BJP majorly handles the politics there by using the power of the Lieutenant Governor. Being the capital of India, the state government which is under the Aam Aadmi Party has limited scope.
But now as the AAP is all set to venture into the politics in Gujarat which is the home state of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah, the BJP is desperately trying to combat Kejriwal's ideas and ideology. The PM took on Arvind Kejriwal’s politics by calling it “revadi” or freebies. The debate hotted up and even reached the Supreme Court, but the key issue is that the BJP and the Congress are unable to combat the AAP's welfare-centric poll promises.
The AAP is becoming a challenge for Narendra Modi and the BJP for several reasons. Arvind Kejriwal does not take any appeasement stand towards the Muslims and majorly stays silent on the issues related to atrocities against Muslims. Just like the BJP the AAP also targets the Hindu vote bank, unlike the Congress party which tries to woo every section.
Similarly when it comes to showing the credentials of nationalism Arvind Kejriwal is not leaving an inch to the BJP. Taking the cues from the failure of the Congress party in talking about nationalism Arvind Kejriwal is not shying away from aggressively promoting his party‘s nationalist credentials.
Kejriwal's welfare politics is not entirely unique. There are governments like the current DMK government in the South, the TRS government of Telangana, Mamata Banerjee‘s government in Bengal, Naveen Patnaik government in Odisha and others that have several free welfare schemes. But they are unable to promote those schemes and ask for votes in other states. It is well accepted that voters of India love freebies and get attracted to these schemes. The larger debate has been whether the freebies are good for the health of the economy of a state or not. Similar debates are going on about whether this kind of poll promise should be made or not. But the key issue which both the BJP and the Congress are trying to avoid is that Arvind Kejriwal is challenging these parties with a parallel model of governance. The BJP with its all power has not been able to combat this pitch.
This is because the promises of Arvind Kejriwal are free and good education, free healthcare, free electricity, water, travel, allowances for women and others. All these issues are connected to the day-to-day life of every single citizen of the state, more than nationalism or religiosity or caste-centrism. This is why the traditional political parties are unable to decide how to take on this new model of governance as a poll pitch. If a citizen believes that these are the real issues about which Kejriwal is talking and these should be the discourse of electoral politics then there is nothing wrong. But expecting such a change overnight is not possible. However, this distinct narrative in India's politics is building up and the BJP and Congress have cause for worry.
The writer is an independent journalist, columnist and a former policy research fellow at the Delhi Assembly Research Center. He tweets as @sayantan_gh. Views expressed are personal
