The importance of Delhi elections

Elections in Delhi are scheduled for later this year and this will be an election that has the potential of changing the political landscape of the country for years to come.

The Delhi assembly elections will not be a Congress vs. BJP eve, but rather an AAP vs. non-AAP parties’ affair. The party has been raising lot of local issues, which are really pertinent in the context of assembly elections. There is a sense of identification and trust being built with the local people. AAP has also taken a stand that it is people's responsibility to vote and not the politicians’ responsibility to ask for votes. This is a new paradigm, unheard of in Indian politics, since Independence; the positioning being that AAP, despite being a political party, is indeed a people's movement.

So far, everyone including the media has been pretending to ignore them. But not the people who cast their votes. The media too has been supportive of politicians since the politicians are in collaboration with the business persons. And it is the same business persons who run the media houses.

If AAP is voted in or at least constitutes the lead opposition, the entire political landscape will change. No media will be able to ignore AAP. And AAP will become a serious player in 2014 national elections. So far, the 2014 national elections are being touted as a BJP vs Congress – Narendra Modi vs Rahul Gandi. This could change with AAP coming to power in Delhi. The third force, which has been absent will emerge with Arvind Kejriwal taking the cake away from the regular politicians.2019, if not 2014 elections may well be Narendra Modi vs Rahul Gandi vs Arvind Kejriwal.

In the event, AAP comes to power and are able to achieve something major e.g. cut down electricity costs by 30%-40% (as they have been claiming), they will immediately be catapulted to be the most serious contenders nationally.

It will also be interesting to see how the personality’s wars shape up. Narendra Modi stands for “Development first, corruption will reduce along the way”.  Arvind Kejriwal stands for “Reduce corruption, development will happen by itself”. Rahul Gandhi is yet to build his persona, but really his persona is his last name. So, it doesn’t matter what he stands for.

Which paradigm will the nation vote for? Only time will tell.