Overall, the results of the three major elections have punctured the ego of the BJP, the top political establishment. It lost Himachal Pradesh to the Congress and failed to retain power in Delhi’s Municipal Corporation (MCD), where the AAP triumphed. The Congress has proven it still has the power to punch. For the BJP, the two humiliating defeats took the shine off its grand victory in Gujarat, the home turf of the Modi-Shah combine. Significantly, the party’s defeat in Himachal Pradesh should shame its president JP Nadda more than the saffron outfit. He could not help the party even in his home state and in the MCD directly under his nose. Question is, with what face can he preside over the party now. To argue that no party in power could retain it for a second term in Himachal for four decades is, by itself, no consolation to him or the BJP.
It is no secret that the BJP retains its halo in Gujarat by virtue mainly of the hold Prime Minister Modi has on the people there. This, it now turns out, is region-specific as Modi’s campaign didn’t help the party in Himachal; and the people of capital Delhi turned their back on not just the BJP but on Modi too. This had happened in Bengal too. The writing is on the wall. BJP claimed the party that runs the central government is better placed to deliver in terms of Delhi’s developmental aspirations. Yet, the party failed to rise to the people’s expectations when it ran the civic body for the past 15 years. A perception is that the BJP is increasingly becoming an establishment party like the Congress. Its leaders do not have an ear to the ground. The party is zealously promoting vested interests, mainly the hangers-on in the corridors of power. Instead of doing the legwork or addressing the people’s problems, its leaders put on airs and depended on the image of the PM to win votes. AAP proved yet again to be the party of the ordinary people – even as over 60 per cent of the newly elected councillors are “crorepatis.”
Delhi, which was once dominated by affluent Punjabis, bureaucrats and power-wielders, had undergone a major demographic shift. It is today populated largely by a workforce from many states, including large numbers of youths from the North-East. The ranks of the ordinary people have swollen. Also, the voting percent was just 51. These were Advantage AAP – and it triumphed despite a ward delimitation exercise and merger of civic bodies.