Can Kejriwal prove he is a force beyond Delhi? Yes

The story was first published on February 13Assembly Elections 2022 might answer this key question: Is there an alternative possible to the Congress-BJP duopoly in Indian politics? The clue to that will be the performance of Arvind Kejriwal and the Aam Aadmi Party, which is hoping to make a mark in three out of five states. If the party scores big, elections 2022 could become AAP’s coming out party. If it doesn’t, it will show that politics remains searingly polarised between a hardline majoritarian BJP and a leftward-lurching Congress, with little space for anybody else.AAP is hoping to win in Punjab, make a dent in Goa and emerge as a new force in Uttarakhand. If it does notch up a victory in Punjab, the energetic political startup that defeated three-time Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit in 2013 would then have broken through as a significant political force on the national stage, worthy of being taken seriously beyond the capital. A strong showing in either Goa or Uttarakhand will mean that the opposition to BJP is not just a decaying Congress, but a younger, nimbler upstart.No wonder that in Campaign 2022, Kejriwal has been the focus of the wrath of both BJP and Congress. Congress’s Randeep Singh Surjewala called Kejriwal a “chota Modi” and in Punjab, Charanjit Singh Channi claimed that the AAP chief is anything but an aam aadmi. BJP’s UP CM Yogi Adityanath engaged in late-night hostilities with Kejriwal on Twitter, declaring that the Delhi CM had failed to protect migrants during Covid, while Goa CM Pramod Sawant announced that the reason why Kejriwal is in Goa is because he has no work in Delhi. medium89532432Interestingly, Prime Minister Modi prefers to keep his attacks focused squarely on Congress because Rahul Gandhi is BJP’s perfect enemy, allowing the ‘naamdaar vs kaamdaar’, ‘nationalist vs minorities’ appeaser’ class and culture war to be played to the hilt. Refusing to recognise any challengers except the most convenient enemy seems to indicate a threat perception about AAP which cannot be as easily pinned down as “tukde tukde gang.” Rahul Gandhi is seen as a pushover for BJP, but not so the Hanuman-chalisa reciting Kejriwal because he could become the same sort of anti-establishment ‘outsider’ that Modi was in 2014, with the same urban middle-class constituency. Kejriwal doesn’t have the baggage of ‘dynasty’ and has strategically avoided getting trapped as either a rightwing nationalist or a non-Hindu leftist.Congress detests Kejriwal too. This is because rather than target the mighty Modi machine, he is actually targeting their vote. A report shows Kejriwal, who once called the prime minister a `psychopath’, has this time used the word Modi only twice in 38 speeches, and instead focused on his core message of a healthcare, education and urban renewal ‘model’. He is now consciously making inroads into Congress voters like Muslims in Gujarat, Catholics in Goa, Dalits in Punjab and upper castes in Uttarakhand and projecting himself as an alternative to a “corrupt” Congress. medium89532440Unlike Rahul Gandhi, Kejriwal has not entered politics by birth-based privilege. Instead he’s a youngish self-made IIT-educated symbol of aspiration. Unlike Mamata Banerjee, he’s not moored in any particular region, and very media savvy. AAP has not yet proved itself as anything but a Delhi phenomenon but has the potential to offer hope for those comprehensively disgusted with both BJP and Congress and keen on a clean break from both. AAP is also future-oriented: its health-education-ethical politics focus may not have the power to distribute the loaves and fishes of high office or lure in vote-catching local dons, but in post-pandemic times, AAP’s fixit model could become attractive to voters.Yet AAP is beset with several challenges. It doesn’t have the resources or enough distinguished credible faces to scale up to a national campaign. Its inability to make headway in the key state of Uttar Pradesh is a case in point. Its economics tends towards the populist. It faces a trust deficit as many of its original India Against Corruption faces have abandoned it and its ideological flexibility has resulted in revolving doors with many departures over the years. Kejriwal is known to be a ‘my way or highway’ supremo and, much like PM Modi, is a polarising figure for many. Yet he’s ploughing a new uncharted path for a post-Covid electorate tiring of politics as usual. Will it be Modi vs Kejriwal in 2024 or perhaps in 2029? The 2022 polls may provide clues.More from the same authorWhy hate speech is becoming normal speechWhy UP is a 1990s Mandir vs Mandal battle all over again