Delhi Verdict, the middle class tax relief and more

By Philip Mudartha
Bellevision Media Network

09 Feb 2025:

Delhi votes AAP out: 

Delhi fell to the aggressive juggernaut of BJP. After twenty-six years, BJP captured the throne of Delhi NCT, the half state with an elected legislative assembly and a full union territory with the Union Government breathing down on the throat of elected Delhi government using its LG, bureaucracy and all central investigative agencies.  After a decade in power, AAP’s failure to deliver on key promises led to a humiliating defeat in the elections concluded on 8th February 2025.

 

 

The transformation of the Muffler Man:

 

When Kejriwal became the CM for the first time, he used symbolic gestures. He slept with his quilt out in the open demanding central assistance for Delhi’s poor, climbing electric poles and disconnecting wires, electioneering with his trademark muffler and a broom and badmouthing his rivals.

 

Kejriwal was often seen in simple attire — untucked, oversized shirt, cheap slippers, a plastic pen in his pocket, and a muffler wrapped around his neck, which became his trademark, giving rise to the moniker ’Muffler Man’.

 

 

However, recent public appearances in sleek puffer jackets signalled a noticeable shift. The expensive renovations to the official residence of Delhi CM further damaged his carefully nurtured image of a common man.

 

Arvind Kejriwal’s rise in Delhi politics was tied to his image as an ‘Aam Aadmi.’ His journey from an anti-corruption activist to Delhi’s CM was marked by choices that highlighted his connection with the average citizen. Alas, Kejriwal is no Aam Aadmi anymore. He came to change politics. But, politics changed him!

 

The Original Gangsters (OGs) of AAP have left him:

 

Writing an Op-ed in NDTV, Ashutosh who once was a close associate of Kejriwal, opines that it is both hasty and tragic to write the obituary of Kejriwal and AAP. Kejriwal has the capacity to rise from the defeat in Delhi like a phoenix.  He has weathered the storm of exits of his closest original gangsters (OGs) like Shanti Bhushan and Prashant Bhushan, ideologue Yogendra Yadav, and others. Many have become fiercest critics of his “one man show” and have joined BJP. The face of his India against Corruption movement, Anna Hazare, was always opposed to his entry into active politics and has remained his critic since then.

 

 

However, within a decade of its inception, the AAP has gained the status of a national party. Kejriwal who had emerged on the national scene as a radical revolutionary who promised to change the politics of the country, allowed politics to change him. In his ambition to earn the status of a national party for AAP, he became yet another politician who lost all his moral lustre and charisma.

 

He forgot that the voters connected with his ’Aam Aadmi’ image and promises of improving their living standards. The Delhi voters gave him two consecutive landslide wins in 2015 and 2020.

 

The ill-conceived excise policy and taint of corruption:

 

In 2021, in his bid to take on the liquor mafia in Delhi, his government privatized the liquor sales in the state. This move angered the excise bureaucracy as well. Allegations that certain private entities were favoured involving financial irregularities led to the withdrawal of the new excise policy. Investigations by central agencies suggested that AAP leaders, including Kejriwal, were involved in corruption.

 

In March 2024, the ED arrested Kejriwal on charges of money laundering linked to the excise policy. This marked the first time a sitting CM was arrested in India. He was granted bail by the SC in September 2024 after nearly six months in detention but had to resign from his post to save his image.

 

Will AAP define its core ideology?

 

No doubt, AAP and Kejriwal are in their lowest moment. It will have to learn the right lessons. It is not wiped out; the silver linings are there for all to see. AAP is not extinct unlike Congress party which scored a duck for the third time in a row. It is the official opposition with 22 seats in the Delhi legislative assembly for the next five years.

 

It is obvious that development works like mohalla clinics, model schools, free water, and subsidized electricity seem to have lost their sheen. New ideas are needed.

 

Some pundits define the verdict as AAP’s existential crisis. They suggest that one can’t be a full-time political party with a freelance ideology.

 

 

AAP has dithered on issues of soft Hindutva, for example. It has not stood up for minority rights. Kejriwal refused to visit riot-affected North-East Delhi in 2020. He demonised Rohingya refugees. He is being largely silent about “bulldozer raj” in Delhi and UP. These postures have sent wrong signals.

 

He also sent pilgrims to Ayodhya to coincide with the anniversary of the Babri Masjid demolition. His replacement, Atishi as CM called herself Bharat and kept the CM’s chair vacant for her “Ram” Kejriwal. The list of the AAP’s attempts to be like “BJP lite” are numerous. It did not learn from Congress which has always failed at peddling “soft Hindutva”.

 

The hard-core Hindutva supporters will always vote for the BJP-RSS combine. These loyalists of BJP form about 39% who will never vote for AAP and Congress.

 

In the just concluded elections, BJP won 45.7% of the vote; that is additional 6% who are politically liberal but became the swing voters.

 

These liberals voted for BJP despite its rigid anti-Muslim Hindutva rhetoric. They have other reasons like a) disillusionment with AAP over civic issues like poor sanitation, bad roads and decrepit infrastructure, b) taint of corruption, c) anti-incumbency and d) the tax relief announced for the middle class in the 2025 Union Budget etc. The vote share of AAP ended up at 43.5%.

 

The vote share of Congress increased to 6.3% from 4.26% in 2020. If AAP and Congress had unitedly fought as INDIA block, the aggregate vote share would have been 49.8% or higher. Such a unity between like-minded parties like AAP and Congress would have caught the BJP on the wrong foot and kept it out of power. Alas, that was not to be.

 

The spoiler was Sandeep Dikshit of Delhi Congress unit who had vowed to avenge his mother’s defeat in 2013 and 2015 at the hands of Kejriwal. His mother, Sheila Dikshit was Delhi CM for three consecutive terms of five years and is credited with her urban renewal model for Delhi NCT.

 

 

Kejriwal lost his New Delhi assembly seat to the BJP candidate by 4, 089 votes in the three-cornered contest. The Congress candidate, Sandeep Dikshit received 4,568 votes. Revenge was sweet for Sandeep Dikshit who made this fight a personal ego trip.