The people of Delhi have a rather easy choice to make when the national capital goes to polls on February 8. With the Indian National Congress (INC) nowhere to be seen in the leadup to the elections, the contest is largely between the Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) who hasn't announced its Chief Ministerial candidate.
In 2015, the incumbent AAP had bagged a whopping 67 seats in the 70-member Assembly, while BJP got the remaining 3. It was the first time the Modi-Shah juggernaut – riding high on their 2014 success – were stopped in its tracks.
Since then Kejriwal has given several metamorphoses, going from a shrill anti-Modi voice who labelled the PM a ‘psycho and coward’, to one who is not against reaching out to Modi’s Lok Sabha voters.
Most opinion polls have touted AAP to get over 50 seats.
Let us look at how the two parties have approached the election campaign:
If there’s one pitch we’ve seen since the 2019 election, it has been the abandonment of Vikas in a fashion more brutal than Advani was removed. The BJP has shown that it doesn’t give a fig about controversy anymore and with the economy moving slower than the Magdarshark Mandal, has looked to increasingly controversial figures.
If it wasn’t enough to put up Pragya Thakur in the 2019 Lok Sabha election, giving India the distinct privilege of being a nation where a terror-accused is an elected representative, this time it’s banking on the likes of Kapil Mishra and Tajinder Singh Bagga.
Incidentally, Mishra led a mob chanting 'desh ke gaddaro ko, goli maro saalo ko' when he led a rally in support of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). He implied that those protesting the Act are traitors and must be shot. The emotion was echoed by Minister of State for Finance Anurag Tiwari who chanted the first half of the slogan during a rally.
Tajinder Pal Singh Bagga, well-known purveyor of fake news on Twitter, shared a video claiming that JNU scholar Umar Khalid had raised 'Hinduon se azaadi' slogans. He even went ahead and warned protesters in Shaheen Bagh that a "surgical strike" will take place on February 11, the day results will be declared.
BJP MP Parvesh Verma - who created history by being banned twice during one election campaign – first warning that anti-CAA protesters in Shaheen Bagh would ‘rape and kill women’, and then termed Arvind Kejriwal a ‘terrorist’.
"If the BJP comes to power on February 11, you will not find a single protester within an hour. And within a month, we will not spare a single mosque built on government land in my Lok Sabha constituency," he said.
Even top BJP leaders seem to be competing with each other to polarise voters using specific terms like biryani, bullets, Shaheen Bagh and Pakistan in their rousing speeches.
Perhaps taking a leaf from Shibu Soren and backed by Prashant Kishor, Arvind Kejriwal and AAP have refused to run a negative campaign, focussing more on their developmental projects in the last five years.
“Our entire campaign will be positive. This time, elections will be fought on work done. Vote for us only if you think we have done work, otherwise don’t,” the Chief Minister had said. Interestingly, Kejriwal’s ambitious education policy has actually seen a lot of individuals being left behind.
Arvind Kejriwal has in fact been rather ambiguous about the anti-CAA protests, carefully choosing to stay out of the nationalist pitch. Nor has he attacked Modi.
Kejriwal and his colleagues repeatedly talk of the reform that they have brought in the education system in the national capital. Kejriwal spent nearly a quarter of his government's Rs 60,000 crore budget into education - the highest in India. It is also for the first time that the results of government schools have far exceeded their private counterparts. "We've worked hard to improve our schools, the education system. Who will take care of the education of your children if you vote for any other party? Just give it a thought," Kejriwal said.
Impressed by AAP’s work in the field of education, the Maharashtra government has decided to adopt Delhi school model to raise the quality of education imparted to children.
In August 2019, the government announced free electricity of up to 200 units for domestic consumers and later extended the scheme to tenants residing in the national capital. The Chief Minister claimed that 14 lakh consumers in Delhi who consumed less than 200 units of electricity received zero bills. "The free electricity scheme in Delhi is going to be an example of smart governance. Every family is now trying to consume less than 200 units after 14 lakh families received zero amount bills. People are also getting benefits of free electricity and they will now start saving electricity," Arvind Kejriwal tweeted.
Another initiative which became the talk of the town was the Mohalla Clinic. A part of the state government's affordable health initiative, these clinics provide services such as basic medical care for common illnesses like fever, diarrhoea, skin problems, respiratory problems, first aid for injuries and burns, dressing and management of minor wounds and referral services. The party’s goal was to setup 1,000 such clinics but could manage only 300, according to a October 2019 report.
According to a ranking based on tap water quality released by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), Delhi is at the very bottom of the list. The national capital is also one of the most polluted cities in the world. In 2019, air pollution levels were 40 times the limit set by the World Health Organization. These are some of the issues which need to be addressed immediately, not biryani and Pakistan.
Now Delhi will tell us whether the people of India want to vote for ideology or development. In that sense, February 11th might become a watershed moment in post-Hindutva politics.
