The Assembly election campaign in Delhi is turning out to be a no-holds-barred attack on rival sides by those seeking to retain or grab power. Clearly, there are attempts at effecting a communal divide. The BJP is seen to be concentrating on national issues, with its stalwarts holding forth against the Shaheen Bagh kind of anti-CAA protests and PM Modi himself seeing in it as “an attempt at dividing the nation into pieces”. On the other hand, the BJP’s principal adversary and chief minister Arvind Kejriwal is adopting a cautious approach vis-à-vis the Citizenship Amendment Act and the struggle by pro-Muslim entities.
With just days to go for voting, the battle lines are not fully drawn yet. Kejriwal has thrown the gauntlet to the BJP, as a last-minute strategy, to immediately announce who its CM nominee would be – a field where the saffron party is at a disadvantage. The BJP might not have anyone strong enough to project as a rival to Kejriwal per se. Its projection of former super cop Kiran Bedi in the last assembly polls there had worked to the disadvantage of the BJP. Kejriwal romped home to success with a near sweep of the total 70 seats in the assembly.
While Kejriwal did good work for the underlings in the capital – who form a sizeable electoral segment – his government’s failure to improve the infrastructure front might go against his party this times at least to an extent. The BJP is trying to sell the idea of a same party rule at Delhi and the Centre from a developmental perspective. It is also testing the waters vis-à-vis national issues like the CAA and the Centre’s Kashmir outreach. Whether voters will look at things from the larger framework or local perspective is what will ultimately tilt the balance. Prima facie, it would look like the Congress party is caught between these two powerful campaign fronts.
It would also be interesting to see whether Kejriwal, by his calculated pushes like offer of free travel to all women in Delhi Transport buses would help his party retain power for a second term. In the minimum, what is clear as of now is that Kejriwal is more on the offensive than on the defensive. That’s pretty great for a leader after a five-year term in power. The BJP, on the other hand, is relying more on PM Modi to boost its prospects – something that has not worked in recent assembly polls elsewhere.