Corporate India's deafening silence on AAP, says it all

New Delhi: The captains of India Inc don’t seem comfortable talking about the Aam Aadmi Party. The country’s top business chambers have welcomed the prospect of a new Government in Delhi with cautiously worded statements but they politely decline to discuss the state of business and indeed of the corporate sector if a party like AAP were to come to power in Delhi. Or even if it were to sit in the Opposition. BJP emerged as the single largest party in Delhi elections, AAP a close second, but no one has a clear majority so no Government formation has begun yet.

The AAP is perhaps the first political party which has refused corporate funding in elections in India. It has already run campaigns against some of the top most business houses and asked searching questions on black money stashed abroad. If AAP indeed were to form a Government in Delhi or become the largest Opposition party and then look to gain a national foothold, it may perhaps leave many large corporate houses and big businesses squirming.

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[caption id=“attachment_1279943” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Kejriwal has some promises to keep. Reuters[/caption]

The state of the Indian economy is fragile at best right now and equity markets as well as foreign investors are pinning hopes on the BJP coming to power at the Centre in the 2014 General Elections because that party is seen as corporate and investment friendly. With AAP now setting its sights on the Centre too, will analysts need to rework their predictions on a bull run in markets and all round increase in foreign investments next year?

Corporate India is largely weary of this new, untested phenonmenon called AAP. The Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci), one of India’s topmost business chambers, declined to entertain any request from Firstpost on discussions about AAP or its impact. Corporate bigwigs likewise asked to be excused. We tried reaching out to people leading varied businesses, from steel magnates to two wheeler kings, but no one wanted to bell the cat.

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So is AAP making India Inc uncomfortable? In its election manifesto, among other things it has promised Delhiites 700 litres of free water per household and halving electricity tariffs. While neither water generation nor its distribution is privatised, electricity distribution is in private hands in Delhi. Obviously then, the discoms operating in Delhi would be none too happy with such a drastic reduction in tariffs.

On its website, the AAP poses a question about whether it believes in the Leftist ideology and answers it thus: We are very much solution focused rather than ideology driven. There is an age old tendency to pin down political parties as left, right, center etc. In the process everyone forgets the issues at hand and their solutions. Our goal is to remain solution focused. If the solution to a problem lies on the left we are happy to consider it. Likewise if it is right (or in the center) we are equally happy to consider it. Ideology is one for the pundits and the media to pontificate about.

Despite repeated attempts since yesterday, AAP spokespersons were unavailable for comments on the party’s uneasy relationship with India Inc.

The position stated on their website is suitably vague. What will AAP do when faced with discoms’ losses versus its promise of substantial reduction in power tariffs? Speaking on CNN-IBN yesterday, AAP’s Yogendra Yadav said his party would do an audit of discoms in Delhi and any discom which refused to particpate in the audit will be asked to shut down. On the national scale, what will it do to sort out the mining, coal, telecom tangles which have presumably taken down the Congress? How will it tackle the ticklish issue of price rise in Delhi?

In an interesting blog entry, Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar yesterday rubbished AAP’s promises to bring down prices of onions in Delhi, saying states have no control over vegetable prices.

“He (AAP’s Arvind Kejriwal) promised that he would bring onion prices to half if voted to power. This is easier said than done. States cannot control these prices as they depend on demand and supply which largely depends on situations such as drought, availability of water etc. Is the farmer growing onions and vegetables facing a drought, does he have water? In such conditions, when the produce is lower, there is bound to be an impact on the rates too. But, this fact is being ignored on purpose. Even though Delhi gets the most investments, its people still want cheaper onions.”

Pawar may not be the best placed to speak of governance and price rise but at least he has asked the right questions about AAP’s economics of dole.

Some India Inc luminaries have welcomed AAP’s emergence openly but again seem somewhat clueless of its impact on their own businesses. Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, chairman and MD of Biocon’s tweeted several times on December 8, the day election results were announced. First, she said “Arvind Kejriwal and AAP have walked the talk on clean politics and tasted success as a result. AAP’s amazing debut says it all - people want corruption free politics based th on transparency n responsibility” But in reply to a tweet which asked “lol AAP has most doles in its manifesto, like 30% cheaper power!! Only INC promised NO doles in Delhi”, Shaw tweeted: what r u saying. You are in denial like INC"

Rajeev Chandrashekhar, MP said in a twitter interview yesterday that “most political parties start off as activst mvmnts. even the cong strted as a freedom mvmt activism party” He was reacting to Firstpost’s question on whether AAP is more populist and less of a realist and are its promises on power tariff reduction, free water deliverable? But how will AAP marry investments, and the need of corporates to generate profits?

Anand Manhindra also welcomed AAP’s emergence while tweeting that “AAP’s dramatic debut shows we want desperately to be idealistic & not cynical.That honesty isn’t just the best policy but the best politics.”

Ficci is the only large aggregation of business houses which has maintained a deafening silence on the historic Delhi elections and the emergence of AAP. But other prominent business chambers have also not been forthcoming - they have issued customary statements saying they are happy to work with any new party which comes to power in Delhi without discussing the effects of AAP on corporate sustainability. Confederation of Indian Industries’ Chandrajeet Banerjee remained unavailable for comments on the subject. But CII was happy to share a statement made by its Northern Region Chairman Jayant Davar which said the chamber was confident that the new Government would be industry friendly.

Assocham, another business chamber, also did not want to stick its neck out and President Rana Kapoor did not share his thoughts on AAP. In an earlier statement, Assocham had merely said “The election results in the Assembly elections have thrown a clear message: It is the quality of governance which matters”.