The Lotus playbook that made capital out of every AAP misstep, used Sangh boots on the ground to the hilt and controlled the narrative till the end of the Delhi polls.
The BJP, riding on a handsome tally of 48 out of 70 assembly seats and a 47 per cent vote-share, including those of allies, has returned to power in Delhi after 27 years, since losing in 1998 to a Sheila Dikshit-led Congress onslaught. In the process, the party has ended the 10-year-long uninterrupted reign of Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).
AAP stands reduced to 22 seats and a vote-share of 43.57 per cent, from 62 seats in the outgoing legislative assembly and a vote-share of 53.57 per cent. The BJP’s vote-share in 2020 was 38.5 per cent and only eight of its candidates had won the election that year.
The BJP finds the victory sweetened by its New Delhi candidate Parvesh Verma defeating Kejriwal by over 4,000 votes. Along with Kejriwal, his entire core group lost—Manish Sisodia from Jangpura (by Tarvinder Singh Marwah), Durgesh Pathak from Rajinder Nagar (by Umang Bajaj), Saurabh Bharadwaj from Greater Kailash (by Shikha Rai), Rakhi Birla from Madipur (by Kailash Gangwal), Somnath Bharti from Malviya Nagar (by Satish Upadhyay) and Satyendar Jain from Shakur Basti (by Karnail Singh).
Among the few close associates who won are outgoing chief minister Atishi, who retained the Kalkaji seat with a narrow win over Ramesh Bidhuri, Gopal Rai (Babarpur) and Imran Hussain (Ballimaran).
While AAP faced massive anti-incumbency, scripting the win was not easy for the BJP in the backdrop of its disappointing Lok Sabha election performance, which saw the tally drop to 240 seats despite the ‘400 paar’ war cry, hyper-Hindutva narrative and strong appeal of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Questions had then been raised about the party’s ability to turn narratives into votes.
The BJP’s assembly poll performances in Haryana, Maharashtra and now Delhi have cemented the belief that its electoral machinery is not only working again but much more lethal. The Delhi victory is all the more special as AAP has been a formidable force in the national capital with a strong core-voter base.
With these victories, the BJP is going back to the drawing board to strategise for the assembly polls in Bihar this year and oil the state units in Karnataka, West Bengal, Punjab, Tamil Nadu and Telangana. These are states where the BJP has made gains, but only to a point. These party units should see overhauling over the next one month. The victory in Delhi has just added to the confidence. How was it scripted and how will it impact the political landscape?
Target Kejriwal
The BJP opted for a very risky strategy of keeping the focus on Kejriwal, demolishing his image of being an anti-corruption crusader and protector of the poor while deftly avoiding falling into the trap of a ‘Kejriwal vs Who’ or ‘Kejriwal vs Modi’ debate. This allowed the BJP to target Delhi’s floating voter segment, which has been seen as comfortable with the ‘Kejriwal in Delhi, Modi at the Centre’ idea.
Parvesh Verma, a two-time MP and son of former Delhi chief minister Sahib Singh Verma, was picked to intensify the attacks on Kejriwal. Verma is known for his political acumen and electoral management. Former Tripura chief minister Biplab Deb was tasked with assisting Verma and managing his war-room.
Across Delhi, the BJP went to the electorate with the messaging that Kejriwal the politician was the very anti-thesis of his activist past. His alleged involvement in the liquor policy scam was raked up and the AAP supremo was accused of extravagant expenditures in the redoing of the Delhi chief minister’s official residence.
A narrative was built that Kejriwal is losing and AAP is on the verge of collapse. The BJP’s ability to spin the election around Kejriwal while denying him any opportunity to play the victim card also helped. It was played up that Kejriwal had failed to deliver on his promises, including cleaning up the Yamuna river. His claim that the AAP government faced hurdles from the Centre didn’t work.
Grip on the narrative
For the BJP, a key learning from recent assembly polls was to strategically build narratives and not lose control of them. While local leaders in Delhi attacked Kejriwal over governance, inconsistent public stances on crucial issues and alleged corruption, national leaders such as Modi, BJP chief J.P. Nadda and Union home minister Amit Shah punctured AAP’s policies without naming Kejriwal directly.
The BJP also held out promises and assurances to the poor, youth and women, making the campaign hyper-local. Foot soldiers of the BJP and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) did house campaigns. Helping them were 149 BJP office-bearers and 17 MPs from Punjab, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, besides all seven Lok Sabha representatives from Delhi.
The Sangh deployed groups of five activists each for the home visits. If AAP leaders were distributing forms for various freebies, the BJP countered it with ‘Modi ki Guarantee’ cards promising women monthly doles of Rs 2,500.
Article source: indiatoday.in
