What kind of political leader calls a truly overwhelming mandate, scary ?
"The people of Delhi have achieved something spectacular. It is very scary, the kind of support the people of Delhi have given us". Obviously it has to be someone who doesn't lust for power, who doesn't look at victory as merely laurels heaped on him but also responsibility entrusted to him and whose first thought is not to take victory laps but how to fulfil them. AAP and Arvind Kejriwal have not only swept the Delhi Assembly polls but have shattered many myths, including the myth of political ideologies being rigid frameworks but which can also be discarded for opportunism or its euphemism, political expediency. I am not sure if AAP has an ideology but it certainly is an idea in itself. An idea clothed in simplicity, based on universal ethics and on a single minded pursuit of helping people, resolving their issues or at least addressing them.
With the mainstream media going orgiastic over the historical win there is little I can say in this post, avalanche of comments, reactions from veteran analysts, social scientists, journalists dominate the discourse over television and print media and the Internet already. I haven't written a single post on AAP since nearly a year mainly because AAP doesn't follow traditional politics, it innovates brilliantly as it goes along, brilliant because the motivation and intent are simple and real. My last post on AAP continues to be as relevant as before, except this time, the political dividend returned adds a lot of credibility to it. So I wouldn't have much to say except in retrospection. It is incredibly interesting to find that nearly everyone has called electoral result as rejection of BJP and Congress (of course, Congress calls it BJP's rout and BJP labels it Congress' decimation) , except the AAP itself, which views it as a positive mandate based on work they did in the 49 days stint as government and as volunteers/ activists since then. And the promises they have made.
Undoubtedly, AAP faces enormous challenges and its not about fulfilling promises made, especially with BJP government retaining some key department and agencies under its control. The fact that the seemingly unstoppable Modi wave meeting immovable Aam Aadmi resolve has left the former train-wrecked, one can expect minor road-blocks on AAP's path. I say minor because the scale of mandate by Delhi electorate backed by a pan-India consensus is something even the union government cannot undermine as brazenly as they have done before, without expecting fresh backlash. However, expecting the Sangh Parivar to take the defeat graciously, especially when they have come so close to fulfilling their destiny, would be an enormous blunder. If at all any political party is likely to learn from AAP's electioneering tactics, it is the RSS cadres but most likely adapt by perverting them. Of course, one cannot rule out Congress cadres resurging and doing the same, the grand old party's roots go deep and wide.
However, ideologies of the Sangh, Congress and the Left occupy the political Right-Centre-Left spectrum, they are confined by it, AAP transcends it. Therein lies the hope. In a truly aspirational India the politics of ghettoisation, communalization and crony capitalism might not work. Indian democracy has emerged stronger and much revitalized after a period of tense political churning.
