With Delhi Assembly Elections barely a week away, the poll campaign in the national capital is getting vigorous by the day. There is a fierce triangular fight between the Aam Aadmi Party, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress in the 70-seat Assembly elections. In this hot contest of who will win Dilli ka dil, political parties are employing a variety of both civil and uncivil tactics.
While the BJP wants to break the 27-year-old jinx (their last government in Delhi was in 1998), Congress reminisces about Sheila Dikshit’s reign from 1998 to 2013 during which the grand old party stamped its authority in the political annals of the national capital. The incumbent Aam Aadmi Party, amid all the controversies and challenges surrounding it, has proven its political mettle since its brief 48-day debut in 2014.
Delhi is set to vote on February 5 with results on February 8. The campaign by the BJP and the AAP, on the face of it looks more intense as compared to the Congress. However, even with this low-key campaign, Congress may have a cascading effect on the AAP, pruning its votes.
Whataboutism to woo voters is rampant during election rallies these days. Parties are unabashedly throwing mud at one another to discredit the opponent and sway voters in their favour. Star campaigners of the BJP, the Congress, and the AAP are busy venting out their anger against one another. All bigwigs are busy bringing their rivals down through rhetoric and narratives – some substantiated, some unsubstantiated.
The BJP is doing all it can to convince voters that choosing the saffron party will make a big difference in their lives. Its state chief Virendra Sachdeva comes before the media and shows documents to question AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal's claims. J P Nadda cites his official position as health minister to back his claim that there are multi-crore scams in Mohalla Health Clinics run by the AAP government. MP Anurag Thakur, while releasing the election manifesto, promises welfare schemes to eclipse AAP’s schemes.
Amid this, the Hindutva agenda, which usually is the centrepiece of the BJP poll campaigns, is not as severely employed as it was in previous elections. BJP which used to mock Kejriwal and his team with jibes like ‘Chunavi Hindu’ is instead talking of development, education, health and women rights.
As for Aam Aadmi Party, its chief is busy giving self-aggrandising speeches, showing a great deal of reverence to the attendees, and seeking acknowledgement from them for the work he claims to have done in Delhi. In his opening remarks, Kejriwal was in awe looking at the size of the audience that had assembled for him at a rally in Patparganj, where Manish Sisodia won the 2020 assembly election by a paltry margin of 3,000 votes. Though Sisodia is not contesting from the constituency this time, Kejriwal is putting all efforts to win it and has picked UPSC tutor turned politician Awadh Ojha to achieve the same.
Sisodia is running from Jangpura this time replacing Praveen Kumar, who secured around 50 percent vote share from the constituency in 2020. He is pitted against BJP’s Tarvinder Marwah and Congress’s Farhad Suri, a former Delhi Mayor. The seat is with the AAP for the last three terms.
Most of what Kejriwal narrates at rallies is repeated by Delhi Chief Minister Atishi. She boasts about the free electricity that Kejriwal claimed to have provided, making sure the crowd has acknowledged by making them reciprocate her slogan “kya aap ko muft bijli milti hai(do you get free electricity?).
Atishi, who has assumed a significant position in the party after she was picked as CM following Kejriwal’s famous resignation, is contesting from Kalikaji constituency of Southeast Delhi. She has against her heavyweights like Ramesh Bidhuri of BJP, a two-time MP from South Delhi and three-time MLA, and Alka Lamba, chief of All India Mahila Congress who won from Chandni Chowk constituency in 2015 on an AAP ticket before joining Congress in 2019.
Given the content of speeches made by politicians during rallies, the election is becoming increasingly unpredictable and interesting. In a series of speeches made by the BJP campaigners, the focus majorly remains on accusations against the AAP government’s welfare schemes. The welfare promises in the three election manifestos that the BJP released – one by Anurag Thakur, the second by JP Nadda, and the third by Amit Shah – highlighted the welfare measures that resembled that of the AAP’s.
Countering the BJP’s poll promises conversely, Kejriwal during a rally, cited how BJP-ruled states like Uttar Pradesh lack basic facilities, feeding concerns that the BJP government if comes to power would scuttle the welfare schemes that AAP government has rolled out. In an effort to allay fears following Kejriwal’s statement, Amit Shah made it clear that the BJP is going to continue the ongoing schemes. During a rally in Karol Bagh, Yogi Adityanath called Kejriwal the “ATM of Lies”. He also drew a comparison between polluted Yamuna in Delhi and the Ganga where pilgrims take a holy dip in UP.
He was campaigning for the BJP candidate Dushyant Gautam, who is contesting against Vishesh Ravi of the AAP and Rahul Dhanak of the Congress. Vishesh Ravi defeated the BJP candidate in the previous two elections by a significant margin. This time, the BJP has fielded Dushyant with the hope that he may be able to turn the tables. In Shakur Basti constituency, BJP has fielded Karnail Singh, the head of the party’s Delhi Temple Cell. He faces three-time AAP MLA Satyendra Jain. The cell was formed in 2022 to engage with Brahmins of Delhi.
Nadda himself campaigned for Singh, signifying the importance of this seat. Singh calls himself a servant of Sanatana Dharma. The campaign that Nadda ran in Shakur Basti remained mostly Kejriwal centric.
Amid a subdued Congress, the BJP and the AAP have gone all out to disparage one another in any manner they believe will attract people to vote for them. It all comes down to February 5 when voters make a distinction between fair play and hyperbole. As Atishi rightly said at a rally in the Deoli assembly constituency, “you cast your vote on one day and the impact remains for five years.”
