Less than a year ago India had witnessed a dramatic change in its political landscape. A right-wing Hindu nationalist party – the BJP (Bhartiya Janata Party) led by a controversial figure, Narendra Damodardas Modi, swept the general election to come to power in center with full majority. It was for the first time in 30 years that a single national party was in a position to form government on its own without needing support of small regional parties. This victory was dubbed as Modi wave.
Given the countrys vast geography and federal structure of government, state assembly elections have been held in five different states (Haryana, Maharashtra, Jharkhand, Jammu & Kashmir and Delhi) since the general election. The BJP emerged victorious in the first four state elections. Until the polling in Delhi was formally announced the BJP looked invincible and the Modi juggernaut was considered unstoppable in the near future. Prime Minister Modi campaigned in each and every poll-bound states as the leading face of the party and his eloquent speeches filled with utopian promises indeed worked only to be rejected in Delhi.
The BJP faced a humiliating defeat in Delhi assembly election ending up with just three seats in the 70-member state legislature. The Aam Aadmi (Common Man) Party led by the anti-corruption activist Arvind Kejriwal grabbed rest of the 67 seats in an unprecedented landslide victory. The BJPs embarrassment is compounded with the fact that not only its Chief Ministerial candidate, a former policewoman Kiran Bedi, could not even win her own constituency but also that the so-called strongest prime minister the party has given to India in three decades, Narendra Modi, campaigned aggressively for the party. And it lost. No matter what the BJP says at the moment, the party itself virtually turned the Delhi election into a referendum on Prime Minister Modi by heavily relying on his political charisma.
Interestingly, the BJP did not lose either at the hands of the Grand Old Party of India, the Indian National Congress (INC) or any other established political parties in the country, but at the hands of a party which is just two-years old and has a limited source of funding and politically naive social activists and whistleblowers- the Aam Aadmi (Common Man) Party (AAP).
The Congress which has ruled for most of Indias democratic history had lost the general election in May last year in which the BJP gained significant ground. Congress is being represented by just 44 MPs in the lower house of the parliament- its lowest tally ever. It has been since trailing in almost all the elections that have followed. It did not win even a single seat in the recently concluded Delhi assembly election.
The loss of Congress at the hands of BJP in general election was a clear mandate for development and prosperity and against pervasive corruption and inequality; whereas the loss of BJP at the hands of AAP in Delhi assembly election is a vote for integrity and honesty in politics and against signs of arrogance and worse, fascism.
The Indian electorates ever growing impatience on delivery of the promises made in the election campaigns must be a lesson for politicians to achieve what they promise or at least make effort in that direction. The Indians have also time and again proved that no election in India is like an India-Pakistan cricket match in which they would always support the Indian side, no matter who plays better. No political party or leader is invincible and it literally takes less than a year to decimate the non-performers. –Mohammad Behzad
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