NEW DELHI: In the end, the 2020 Delhi assembly polls turned out to be Landslide 2.0 in favour of Aam Aadmi Party . And social scientists believe that the victory of Arvind Kejriwal will momentarily stem BJP’s raucous political rhetoric.

“The election result is good news for Aam Aadmi Party, people of Delhi and India. If the BJP had succeeded, then this vitriolic campaign of communal hatred would have become a standard template. We are saved from that. The victory has also put some brake on the BJP steamroller which is out to dismantle the republic,” says social scientist Yogendra Yadav, also a former member of AAP’s apex Political Affairs Committee,

Rahul Verma of Centre for Policy Research said that there is now a template emerging to challenge BJP. “But the good news for BJP-Modi is that the template suggests that the parties have to be on the Centre-Right. None is taking them on over the question of religion and nationalism. In that sense, it is their ideological victory. It moves the fulcrum of ideological contest to Centre-Right,” he said.

“The voters are also making a distinction between state and center. But how long and far needs to be seen. We have seen that since 2018, a segment of voters who support Modi and BJP during Lok Sabha elections chose opposition parties during state elections. This is an emerging trend, but we don’t fully understand the reasons behind it. BJP is facing a difficult time to hold on to states. They need to introspect on strategy to retain or win states,” Verma said.

Political scientist Imtiaz Ahmad said it would be too early to say if Delhi represents a trend towards decline of Hindutva politics. “However, it is certain that things may not go smoothly for BJP in Bihar and West Bengal . Modi has opened too many fronts: Kashmir, CAA, NCR, and much would depend on what happens on these fronts. The ST and SC issue too will heat up soon. If Muslims, Dalits and Sikhs come together Hindutva politics may run into difficulty,” Ahmad said.

A former member of AAP’s apex Political Affairs Committee, Yadav said that AAP fought a difficult election coming back from a complete reversal in the Lok Sabha polls and managed a remarkable comeback in the face of a very aggressive BJP campaign and a docile EC. At the same time, it would be wrong to see this as a new model of governance or a new type of politics.

Yadav, now president, Swaraj India party, said that the performance of the AAP government was “moderate” with “focus on some visible delivery, without paying much attention to the rest”.

But he also pointed out that “the formula has been used previously by Naveen Patnaik in Odisha, Nitish Kumar in Bihar, Modi when he was Gujarat CM and Raman Singh in Chhattisgarh . AAP also had a very powerful communication machine, a fairly-organised electoral machine and rode on a personality cult. Instead of changing the rules of the game, the new entrant has learnt the existing rules better than the older players.”

Verma said that AAP smartly steered clear from the ideological planks of the BJP and kept the campaign very local. “BJP did not have a state-level leadership to match Kejriwal’s personality and charisma. And Kejriwal, for his own good, avoided a direct ‘personality’ contest with PM Modi,” he said.

“AAP could now be in a good position to make a comeback in Punjab, which is due for polls in 2022. If they manage to do so, they can emerge as an important pole at the national level,” he said.

Ahmad said that BJP neither had “a leader with a strong base in Delhi” nor any blueprint for the capital. “It chose instead to try to polarise through focussing on Hindu-Muslim issue. The language used by the BJP leaders put off people, especially Muslims and moderate Hindus. On the contrary, AAP focused throughout on a development agenda. Its performance over the past five years, particularly water, electricity and mohalla clinics had made a good impact on people. In a nutshell AAP performance helped it greatly.”

Congress received a mere 4.2% of the votes. In 2015, it had earned 9.7 of the votes. In 2013, Congress had got 24.6% votes. Many reasons have been attributed to the party’s precipitous slide.

Yadav said he did not attribute the fall in Congress votes to the party’s electoral strategy or campaign. “The Congress didn’t have much to present to the people: a leader, a plan, a manifesto or a strategy. It is the Delhi voters’ who decided that in Lok Sabha, it is BJP vs Cong and in the assembly polls, BJP vs AAP,” he said.

