8 December 2013, a date when the Nation was eagerly waiting for the political scenario to unfold in some of the key constituencies, especially Delhi. From the moment Anna Hazare's andolan on the issue of corruption last year, Delhi has been the hotspot of several political and otherwise incidents, more so in negative aspects than positive.
In what resulted as a much predicted pseudo hung assembly, only the future will tell the direction ahead.From either parties shying away from forming a government, the situation looks that neither party is willing to form the government.
Kiran Bedi made an interesting comment "Coming together of BJP and AAP will be a respect of the voters' mandate. BJP and AAP should talk to each other. The voters want both BJP and AAP and Delhi needs a good government".
Having personally interested in following the situation, I wanted to share some key perspectives on which the results may be interpreted taking as base, some key aspects which had been since long in discussions. It had to also for a wide range of seemingly far fetched interpretations were hammered down by Media houses and Parties which in my opinion were not all true.
In what resulted as a much predicted pseudo hung assembly, only the future will tell the direction ahead.From either parties shying away from forming a government, the situation looks that neither party is willing to form the government.
Kiran Bedi made an interesting comment "Coming together of BJP and AAP will be a respect of the voters' mandate. BJP and AAP should talk to each other. The voters want both BJP and AAP and Delhi needs a good government".
Having personally interested in following the situation, I wanted to share some key perspectives on which the results may be interpreted taking as base, some key aspects which had been since long in discussions. It had to also for a wide range of seemingly far fetched interpretations were hammered down by Media houses and Parties which in my opinion were not all true.
Of Voting Percentages, Candidates and Polling Stations
To start with the voter himself, Delhi saw a record turnout this election. Here is a trend in Voting Percentages sourced from the EC website for the last 4 elections| 1998 | 2003 | 2008 | 2013 | |
| Percentage Vote | 48.99 | 53.42 | 57.61 | 66.5% |
| Total Candidates | 815 | 817 | 875 | 810 |
| Polling Stations | 9142 | 8977 | 11155 | 11763 |
The trend clearly indicates an enthusiastic increase in the Voter turnout in 2013, attributed to some good work performed by the EC to enroll voters and voters themselves to be motivated to get enrolled and use their right to vote.
Having said that an interesting trend to be observed also is the decrease in list of total candidates that contested the Delhi elections which had shown an increase, if only marginal in all previous elections. Overlaying this statistic with the fact that AAP is a new party which fielded a lot of new faces (not all as a significant AAP candidates were previous candidates from BJP/Congress/Other parties). This brings down the number further. This shows an equally interesting trend of a significant drop candidates contesting elections. Together this statistics seems to suggest that in 2013 more people were voting for fewer candidates which may have led to less dilution of votes towards major parties. However, Delhi has been a bifurcated battle (now trifurcated) in the past and this may not have been a huge factor in the results.
In summary, the huge voter turnout does surely represent the frustration Delhi had towards is previous favorite party of past several elections, and Congress was on the receiving end of it not just for state issues but dissent of the people on national issues as well.
Of Reserved Constituencies
2013 saw an increase in the reserved constituencies (SC) compared to the last election. There were 12 reserved constituencies. An interesting trend on the analyzing the wins in these areas it throws up an interesting trend that AAP was the favorite in these constituencies. Of the 12 constituencies AAP secured wins on 9 seats while BJP securing only a single seat.
Given that BJP won significant seats overall, this trend is interesting and possibly something for BJP to think about in the future.
Of Clean Candidates, Sting Operations
Rejection of candidates with criminal cases has been pitched as a policy by several crusaders of anti-corruption, some elements of AAP are not exception to the rule. This as a factor was much emphasized by Anna Hazare's team and a lot of activists to voters in their respective constituencies.
When looking at pure statistics post the Delhi elections which includes offshoots from Anna's team forming AAP, the theory of fielding candidates with no criminal cases and them winning looks rather a farse.
Also the notion of considering candidates with criminal cases as "dirty" does not look to be true in a general context barring a few exceptions.
If you were to wonder why AAP is silent on this aspect, it may come as a surprise to some individuals who I heard suggesting AAP was better as they had no candidates with criminal cases, this information is incorrect.
Infact, AAP MLA Arvind Kejriwal himself has 5 self declared registered criminal cases (some serious as per myNeta) and appears in the top 3 "tainted" winning candidates as per the lingo. There were other 4 candidates from AAP which have self declared criminal cases. It is also interesting that most of the other candidates who have criminal cases have a subset of the same criminal cases registered against Arvind Kejriwal. If Arvind is held as a crusader, and the cases are after effects of the same, criminalizing the other candidates without a thorough background understanding of their individual selves would be outright immoral if not criminal in itself.
Additionally, although percentage of elected "dirty" candidates have reduced to 36% from 43% in the last election, this factor however does not seem to have any significant bearing. This bears to question the understanding of a various ideologies on defining a tainted candidate.
While the nation saw a lot of interesting events, the MediaSarkar sting operation on AAP was possibly the biggest twists in the political battle. How legitimate the sting was is to EC to decide in the future for a complete analysis but it does seem that it did have a bearing of a few seats possibly to AAP which quite some candidates not winning the seats including Shazia Ilmi (though with a small margin)
As a new article once said "The aam aadmi can try as he might stop being party to corrupt practices but corruption is not going anywhere. Even Kejriwal can’t promise a foolproof corruption-free system."
This should thus enlighten the nation that a candidates credibility is purely subjective to what is being presented and people should be less critical in forming quick judgements towards candidates in or outside AAP.
Another notable aspect that happened was the denial by Kumar Vishawas to contest elections, at a time when the party had already decided to constest him against Harshwardhan (BJPs CM candidate) at the very last moment, even before the Sting. AAP trusted Kumar on to form its key strategy against Harshwardhan only to be denied by Kumar. An interesting event whose actual reasons are only known to AAP which looked thoroughly depressed on the issue.
Of Vote Shares, Seat Performances and Moral wins
Several speculations and interpretations of the final tally have been made by several individuals, I only attempt to make cautious interpretation of the factual numbers and historic trends
Starting with the lowest
Congress
Congress though secured only 8 seats, a 25% vote share is still number which arguably is a saving grace for parties future. Facing a complete debacle over anti-incumbency not just from the state but also from the Center it will be interesting to see the parties future in the state and possibly in LS 2014. Given the absolute humiliation by the voters of Delhi, hope Congress takes a lesson learnt from here on.
AAP
AAP secured a 30% voteshare with 28 seats in its bucket. These numbers are remarkable for a debutant party and it has happened only a few times in politically ancient history. While the praises wont be enough for a performance as good as this one, it is noted that the party had indeed succeeded due to its role in creating an environment against the Congress/Corruption rather than any developmental credibility of running a government. It would have thus be interesting to subject AAP to a litmus test of running an efficient and corruption free govt in the heart of the nation. Argument are rife that suggest BJPs best strategy at this stage would be to let AAP form the government either by re-election or other means to see how efficiently they deliver to contents of 70 different manifestos in a timeline of 5 years, in addition Infrastructure and Commerce development in the state.
AAP correspondingly should grasp the opportunity and prove their metal in governance.
BJP+
BJP+ clearly emerged as the most popular party both by vote share and by seats. Not only did it secure 32 seats, but maintained a 33% voteshare. While during initial attempts by AAP to criticize BJP to have lost the moral right to lead when AAP was ahead in the voteshare during counting, the same faces were nowhere to be found making those claims after the result.
It is also interesting to note that historically for the last 4 elections, AAPs seat tally has only increased, with a significant increase in this election as well. This clearly indicates to an extent that Delhi may have rejected Congress completely, it possibly does not hold BJP responsible for the same. For a party which has a long political history in the nation, such a sentiment cannot be driven by short term campaigns, criticism and policies but definitely the party is doing a few things right. In response to several negative interpretations made by Media and other parties, the results suggest BJP+ should be given a little more credit than what is being presented to the nation currently.
Hereon, if BJP allows AAP to create a govt. the Delhi voters may well go in a single direction with either BJP or AAP based on their performance, but the situation for now clearly suggests the state as a whole has "not" made up its mind
It is interesting that while AAP fielded 70 candidates, BJP field 67 candidates. In light of the deficit of these 3 seats, BJP did look more efficient, but should have well planned to field all candidates, but for reasons only known to BJP.
In summary, while there is much to rejoice and an excellent start to AAP, BJP still seems to have a strong hold on its loyal segments of Delhi while making slow progress in each election. It will be interesting to see if AAP now targets BJP with its Corruption policing to garner majority or forms the govt, if the situation emerges and delivers the promise of alternate leadership.
It looks like a page from what is going to be interesting Book on Delhi's Political situation, what happens ahead is a much anticipated mystery...
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