Political exigency and the ideological battle for India’s soul have come together to persuade three parties to overlook their differences with AAP to align behind it.

Editor's Note: This article was published originally on 7 May. Given that today is election day in Varanasi, we are republishing it.

Regardless of his eventual performance in Varanasi, Aam Aadmi Party leader Arvind Kejriwal has veritably become, to quote a social scientist, the “most authentic face” of opposition against the politics of BJP, the meaning its prime ministerial candidate, Narendra Modi, embodies, and the culture of crony capitalism that is said to haunt the nation.

This is precisely the reason why the Janata Dal (U) has extended support to Kejriwal in Varanasi, and the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist), or the CPI (ML), has asked its cadres to work openly for him.

Significantly, many of the Communist Party of India (CPI) cadres in Varanasi have also decided to contribute their might to Kejriwal’s endeavour, in the process shunning Hira Lal Yadav, who is the CPI (Marxist) candidate in the battle to win the city of temples and ghats.

But the reverse is as true: The CPI (M) has fielded its candidate and the Congress has parachuted its leaders, particularly those from the Muslim community, into Varanasi to ensure that AAP doesn’t become the pole to which the opponents of the BJP and Modi gravitate around in the future.

Political exigency and the ideological battle for India’s soul have come together to persuade three parties to overlook their differences with AAP to align behind it.

The most significant is the JD (U)’s decision, not the least because its leader Nitish Kumar is arguably the most famous Kurmi, the caste which accounts for 2.5 lakh votes in Varanasi and is bitterly split over the decision of its leader, Anupriya Patel, to enter into an alliance with the BJP. Varanasi also has a substantial number of Bihari students studying here, for whom Nitish might well be an attraction.

A beleaguered Nitish seems to have weighed in for AAP with an eye on the future. The breakdown of the JD (U)-BJP alliance has turned his into a minority government, susceptible to defections and splits.

This could well be Nitish’s fate should Modi become the prime minister, inclined as he would be to undermine the man who questioned his credentials. Nitish can’t, obviously, count on Lalu Prasad Yadav or the Congress to come to his defence, likely as they are to derive advantage from a possible Bihar government meltdown.

True, Nitish has an assurance of support from the Left, which, however, is on the decline, not expected to scale the apogee of electoral success it managed in 2004. Its influence is confined to distinct pockets of India and, as of now, it can’t spearhead a credible popular protest against a possible attempt of the BJP to roil the waters of Bihar.

Though AAP’s electoral strength isn’t likely to match that of the Left, Kejriwal through his strident criticism of the Gujarat Development Model and decision to contest from Varanasi has acquired the aura of the leader who could most effectively lead the future charge against the BJP on the streets. Varanasi, in that sense, has bolstered his pan-India profile, leaving behind those who couldn’t make the leap from the regional to national stage.

Indeed, the irony can’t be missed. It was the Left which accused the UPA government of favouring big business through its allocation of natural resources for industry. Yet, it is Kejriwal who is identified as the implacable opponent of crony capitalism in the popular consciousness, having taken the idea minus the jargon to the people and linking it to the malaise of corruption.

It is a truism of Indian democracy – an issue to gain traction requires a popular leader to be its bearer.

This was the gist of the passionate debate among the leaders of the Varanasi district unit of the CPI, many of whom are working on their own for AAP or taking its volunteers to meet union leaders of organisations such as banks. It is not that they are enamoured of Kejriwal, but they credit him for popularizing the issue of crony capitalism which the Left had first raised.

He is also lauded for ordering the audit of power distribution companies, thereby underscoring, philosophically, the need to cap the margin of profit they are legitimately entitled to make.

It is true the CPI district leaders find Kejriwal’s formulation of “we are neither right nor left” galling. Yet two factors influenced their decision to support Kejriwal, a decision neither formal nor announced publically.

One, his rhetoric has provided an impetus to the kind of politics the Left subscribes to, particularly the focus on the economic policy.

Two, they thought it was futile to favour a CPI (M) candidate who can’t possibly vanquish Modi. From this perspective, Kejriwal has been supported because that signifies the “most effective politics”.

It isn’t always that the CPI’s Varanasi unit has pursued the brand of “effective politics.” For instance, in 2009, despite the prodding and pronouncement of its national and state leaders, the district unit did not support the then BSP candidate Mukhtar Ansari, claiming the alleged underworld don did not reflect the politics of the Left.

Mukhtar, they argued, shouldn’t be voted for just because of being the principal opponent to the BJP’s Murli Manohar Joshi. It is the reverse that Varanasi is arguing in 2014: not only is Kejriwal the principal contender to Modi, he also mirrors, to some extent, the ideas of the Left.

The debate in the CPI’s Varanasi unit testifies to the cleaving aspect of Kejriwal’s politics at the grassroots, his ability to mean something to everyone, from the middle class to subaltern groups, once the defining feature of the Congress.

For instance, the CPI (ML) decided to unilaterally support Kejriwal in order to, as its general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya told me in an interview, “oppose Modi’s Varanasi’s expedition and expose and challenge his variety of corporate-driven communal politics.”

Though his party differs substantially from AAP, Bhattacharya expressed hope that “as the battle against corporate plunder and corporate subversion of democracy intensifies, the revolutionary Left and AAP will hopefully have occasions to assess their respective positions and explore possibilities of meaningful cooperation.”

AAP’s ability to drive a wedge through the existing support base of different parties is the reason why the Congress is working overtime to ensure its candidate in Varanasi, Ajai Rai, emerges as the principal contender to Modi. It has sent a clutch of Muslim leaders there to hack at the increasing community consolidation behind Kejriwal. Partly, it is retribution against AAP’s decision to stoke anger against Rahul Gandhi in Amethi.

But it also about ensuring Kejriwal doesn’t turn in an exceptional performance, for this would challenge the predominance of the Congress in the anti-BJP space, rendering it even more difficult for the party to revive its fortunes and rebuild itself.

(The author is a Delhi-based journalist and can be reached at ashrafajaz3@gmail.com)