OPINION

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has lost an election which for it was to win. The is how the results of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) polls could be summed up on one line. The poor turnout of voters in the first place had indicated towards BJP being pushed onto the backfoot.

More than the anti-incumbency of 15 years, it has been lack of credible leadership at the state level which has harmed the saffron party in the national Capital more than any other factor. From a very dominant performance during the assembly election held in February 2020, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) was engaged by the BJP in a cliffhanger in the MCD polls, the latter could have carried the day provided they had a face to project.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi cannot be the sole currency for the party to monetise its performance at every tier of our democratic set-up. BJP’s experiments with the regional and caste votes without a credible face has failed them now in two consequent elections.

A poll reforms body, Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), which is headed by a retired professor from Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, has released a very interesting document about the candidates in the fray for December 4 polls of Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD).

The report says 18% of candidates belonging to the Aam Aadmi Party for the upcoming MCD elections face criminal cases, followed by the BJP and Congress. On the other hand, the BJP has topped the list of ‘crorepati’ candidates, followed by AAP and Congress.

It must have been like swallowing bitter pill for the ADR to come out with this report drawing on the ‘criminal’ character of the AAP. Like several non-governmental organizations (NGOs), ADR too were part of the social sector conglomerate which had supported the ‘India Against Corruption’ campaign of Anna Hazare in 2011, which was spearheaded by Arvind Kejriwal, then a social activist.

The Gujarat assembly election are now round the corner. The state faces a triangular fight, or at least the media says so. The media spoke similarly very high about the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) when the assembly elections were held in Uttarakhand and in Goa. They ended up giving miserable performance in the two states.

AAP’s performance was initially tipped to be very good in Himachal Pradesh too. But despite a cheering media, the party itself decided to give up. AAP insiders say that with considerably weakened financial sinews, following arrest of Minister Satyender Jain in money laundering scam, it was not possible for Arvind Kejriwal to fight BJP on two fronts, thus he decided to ‘recall forces’ from Himachal for the bigger battle in Gujarat.

The big battle, as Kejriwal sees it, is his best opportunity to emerge as a challenger to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He had made a similar attempt early in his career taking on Modi in 2014 Lok Sabha polls from Varanasi. This was at the peak of his anti-corruption movement and he managed to poll 2.09 lakh votes against Modi’s 5.81 lakh.

The votes grabbed by him were much more than those put together by the Congress, Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party. However, in 2019 Lok Sabha polls while other players remained in the area, it was not just Kejriwal but also his party which was missing.

Delhi has often been derided for its unique governance structure, which has three distinct levels. It’s been called multiplicity of authority, which people have claimed to be the bane for the governance of the national Capital.

Now let’s put it this way, that no government law or policy is prima facie maliciously intended. Deficiencies emerge in its implementation. And these deficiencies may not necessarily be on the account law being inherently bad but it’s largely due to the ill intent of the people implementing it.

We have the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) polls scheduled to be held in a fortnight’s time. Some political party would win the polls and the other would lose but governance in Delhi would continue to remain defeated. There is a reason for this thought of pessimism.

Politics of confrontation between the BJP-led Centre and the AAP-ruled Delhi has hampered city’s infrastructure and its financial growth. A status quo would continue if AAP were to capture power in the Civic Centre. In case of the BJP returning to power, the chances of having development projects back on the rail would also remain remote. Development of Delhi is only possible if the leading political parties come together to work with a sense of cooperation.

In an ostensible mention about the ‘clean politics’ agenda of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), Prime Minister Narendra Modi had mentioned at a public rally that those who call themselves incorrigibly honest (kattar imandar) can be seen raising hands together with those convicted of corruption. He was referring to the photograph of Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal with Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Lalu Prasad Yadav.

Yadav has been convicted of corruption in the infamous fodder scam cases of Bihar and thus made illegible for contesting elections. Arvind Kejriwal, however, in a way is doing one better on Lalu Prasad Yadav, who had decided to quit when the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) came to arrest him. Unlike Yadav, Kejriwal has allowed his cabinet colleague Satyender Jain to continue in office despite being arrested as far back as May 31 this year in a much graver case of money laundering.

The attempts to get bail by the Minister despite hiring best of the lawyers has failed so far. Rejecting his application last week, the trial judge said, “prima facie Jain was actually involved in concealing the proceeds of crime by giving cash to the Kolkata-based entry operators and thereafter, bringing the cash into three companies... against the sale of shares to show that income of these three companies was untainted one.”