The AAP was the party that humbled the BJP when the Modi magic was still at its peak, a few months after Narendra Modi became the prime minister after his party's spectacular victory in the Lok Sabha elections in 2014.
The residents of the National Capital Territory enthusiastically gave Arvind Kejriwal and his Aam Aadmi Party an unimaginable 67 out of 70 seats in early 2015. Today, they have rejected his party at the Municipal Corporations of Delhi (MCD) polls. It seems that was a honeymoon at its peak, and now it is about living with the party, in all its true colours.
Or, do the people want filth and dengue? As curtains fell on campaigning, the Delhi chief minister had described the problems created by the BJP dominated civic bodies, and blamed the annual seasonal disease and the garbage heaps that mar the face of the capital, squarely on them.
The BJP has not only romped back home, but improved its numbers, from a total of 138 out of 272 wards in 2012, to 184 now.
And the Congress, which had the people's support and votes for 15 long years in the city-state, has lost some more. From 77 seats five years ago, they have come down to 30.
The BJP would like us to believe that it is a referendum on the Modi government, and the prime minister personally. In fact, they are attributing more credit to these two than to the work done by the councillors. That the work may leave much to be desired, is something that the BJP leaders too agreed — they attributed their failures to the lack of funding and support by the Kejriwal government.
Worse was the AAP's response to their defeat. They blamed the EVMs, with Delhi labour minister Gopal Rai saying that it was not a BJP wave, but “an EVM wave”.
An AAP member who did not want to be identified even wondered whether the Modi bashing and BJP bashing had led to the AAP's decline.
But quite likely the results have come as a timely warning, for the party to review and rework its priorities and political style.
Kejriwal claimed they had done enormous development work and even ensured nobody missed them—on full front page ads in the dailies and through jingles in many FM radio stations. But what stood out was not the work, but the constant show down he had with the Modi government and the Lt Governor of Delhi. And it did not help that his focus through the two years and three months has been on expanding his party beyond Delhi, by personally parking himself—in Punjab or Goa, and the many brushes that his team mates had with the law.
The Congress campaign was low key and listless, compared to the aggressive show put up by the BJP. The experienced party was slow in making promises, generally waiting to follow the rivals rather than throw ideas into their manifesto. In the best traditions of Indian politics, DPCC president Ajay Maken quit his post owning responsibility for the defeat. He said there was a “reasonable revival” as there had been a rise in the vote percentage for the Congress—compared to the last assembly elections.
Interestingly, the BJP while celebrating the win, has to continue working with its bete noire—AAP, for now.