Meaning of AAP's victory

It has been described as the halting of the “saffron juggernaut,” the Bharatiya Janata Party's worst recent political drubbing, and Narendra Modi's Stalingrad, the battle that became a turning point in World War-II. 

The Aam Aadmi Party's staggering victory in Delhi was that -- and more. It was the first complete, humiliating rout suffered by the BJP since May, with no redeeming features whatever. That it happened in India's capital, where the BJP had won all seven Lok Sabha seats eight months ago, only magnifies its magnitude.

AAP's victory was sweeping: 67/70 seats, and 54.3% of the vote, even higher than the Janata Party's share in the historic post-Emergency “wave” election. It had a strong class angle: the dispossessed.

According to a Lokniti-CSDS survey, 66% of Delhi's poor voted for AAP, three times more than the BJP. AAP also got 57% support from the lower-middle class. These groups form 60% of the population.

Similarly, a majority of Dalits and OBCs favoured AAP. And 77% of Muslims (12% of Delhi's population) and 57% of Sikhs voted for AAP. This gives AAP a far more inclusive character, centred on the poor majority, than the BJP can dream of.

The BJP was routed despite its energetic, well-micromanaged, opulently financed, Modi-Amit Shah-designed campaign. Their strategy followed the Lok Sabha recipe: polarise voters on caste, class and religious lines; appeal to Hindu-supremacism and jingoism; and hype up the inequality-enhancing “Gujarat model” to win upper-caste-upper-class votes.

The campaign manufactured a larger-than-life image for Modi. But he failed to draw crowds, so Kiran Bedi was drafted in, along with the entire cabinet, 120 MPs, and one lakh RSS volunteers.

The BJP was trounced primarily because Modi's national popularity is declining. The BJP is seen as arrogantly pro-rich, sectarian, divisive and loutishly communal. Modi has failed to deliver jobs -- a hugely important (if mythical) promise. His “Swacchh Bharat,” Jan Dhan Yojana and “smart cities” schemes are empty slogans.

Modi's vanity stands exposed. He changes his attire thrice a day. His Rs. 10-lakh suit with his name woven into its fabric has been described by a British paper as the Emperor's “new clothes,” needed by a “self-aggrandising and insecure megalomaniac.” The suit will damage him for years, as will his pro-Big Business policies.

Worse, Modi's government is seen as anti-poor. It raised rail fares, and failed to lower petrol/diesel prices. It savagely cut the National Rural Employment Guarantee budget. And it's preparing to severely restrict the Public Distribution System for food, and remove all labour protection.

The government's land acquisition ordinance will displace millions of farmers without social or environmental impact assessment. This is one reason why the BJP lost all 14 seats in rural Delhi; in 2013, it won 13.

The Delhi defeat culminates the BJP's post-May relative decline. It performed poorly in 50 Assembly by-elections. Its showing was below-par in Assembly elections in Maharashtra, Jharkhand, Haryana, and Jammu and Kashmir.

In Maharashtra, it spurned an alliance with the Shiv Sena, but had to crawl back to it. In Jharkhand, its score plummeted from 12/14 Lok Sabha seats to 37/81 Assembly seats. In Kashmir, its boastful “Plan 44+”crashed.

Meanwhile, the Sangh Parivar created serious insecurity among numerous religious-ethnic groups, including Northeastern Indians, described as “immigrants.” Its anti-minority campaigns, including “ghar-wapsi” and Godse-worship, are tacitly backed by BJP bosses. Modi hasn't restrained them. At work here isn't the BJP's “lunatic fringe”; it's the party itself.

AAP projected itself as a credible pro-poor moral force, of the kind the Left once was -- irreverent towards authority, militant in opposing privilege based on birth, passionately egalitarian, and ready to bring “the world's largest democracy” down to earth through expanded people's rights and greater public accountability.

AAP's victory has generated incredible exuberance among the underprivileged. It will alter national political equations and revive the opposition, with an impact in Bihar and Punjab (four AAP MPs) where Assembly elections are due soon.

AAP's victory has further marginalised the Congress. This isn't good for Indian democracy, which needs a middle-of-the-road multiple-current umbrella party, in place of a system dominated by a Right-wing party like the BJP. But the Congress must realise that the Gandhi family, in particular Rahul, is a millstone around its neck.

The Left and regional parties will do well to learn from AAP's local democracy-based approach, and its unabashed populism.

Populism is a much-maligned word. But in its original sense -- prioritising redistribution over growth, advancing social justice, and attacking the political establishment “for being self-serving and deaf to the needs of the ordinary citizen” -- it's a healthy thing. We need more populism and less pandering to the rich.

Central to AAP's future is its Delhi performance. To deliver on subsidised water and power, AAP should avoid hasty decisions and consult equity-oriented experts from Prayas Energy Group (Pune) and Yamuna Bachao Abhiyan.

AAP must also be more open to working with parties and civil society groups on issues of broad popular concern, like secularism, land acquisition, and rights to food, housing, healthcare and education. That's where its future lies.

The writer is an eminent Indian columnist.