Bedi Vs Kejriwal: Delhi winner may be decided by which way Congress vote splits

The battle for Delhi may seem like a popularity contest between Arvind Kejriwal of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and Kiran Bedi, the BJP’s recent recruit and Chief Ministerial candidate, but the chances are this is going to be as close to a Left-Right fight as one can imagine. In a sense, the fight for Delhi’s vote in the 7 February polls is as much a class war as it is about personality, caste, religion, corruption or women’s safety. The injection of Bedi into the battle (with Narendra Modi acting as indirect support) is intended not so much to wean votes away from Kejriwal in the humbler, slummier pockets of Delhi as to ensure that the strong middle class following of Modi and the BJP in the capital remains with the party. She already seems to be having an impact. The most recent ABP News-Nielsen poll shows Kejriwal’s lead for the CM’s chair is very narrow – just 47 percent to 43.9 percent. When the projected CM candidate was Harsh Vardhan in some earlier polls, the lead was huge – over 15 percent. [caption id=“attachment_2056123” align=“alignleft” width=“380” class=" “]  Kiran Bedi and Arvind Kejriwal.[/caption] However, the decisive tilt will come from what happens to the Congress vote. If we take Congress as a centrist party, but a bit to the left of the BJP, its dwindling vote share indicates that its base is splitting – the poor moving towards AAP, and the middle classes towards the BJP. In the _India Today_\-Cicero poll of early January, when Bedi’s candidature for the chief ministership was not on the horizon, the BJP’s vote share was said to be 40 percent, AAP’s 36 percent and the Congress’s around 16 percent. But the more recent ABP News-Nielsen poll shows the BJP and AAP almost level at 45-46 percent, and Congress shrinking to just 8 percent. Clearly, the larger chunk of the Congress vote may have shifted to AAP and BJP – but in a proportion we cannot know. While it may not be right to compare the results from two different pollsters, since their methodologies may have been different, the sharp drop in the Congress share is indicative of the fact that it is being squashed between the main contestants. If we assume the Congress vote to comprise more of the poor than the middle classes, the battle may be swinging Kejriwal’s way. But it is important to consider how all the three main parties conduct themselves in the home stretch of the run before we can be sure. The Bedi factor may be important for the BJP, not least because she inherits a part of the anti-corruption mantle along with Kejriwal, and also because Ajay Makan, the Congress’ campaign-in-charge, appears to be making a last-ditch effort to prevent the party from drawing a complete blank. Among other things, he has issued a sharp attack on Kejriwal’s 49-day tenure, whereas Sheila Dikshit had earlier indicated that between AAP and BJP, the Congress would back AAP if no one gets a majority. Dikshit’s statement could have been read as a signal that Congress voters can lean towards AAP to stop the BJP, but Makan’s efforts seem to suggest another reality: any major gain for AAP can only come from the demise of the Congress. In a sense, giving AAP a clean win means the end of the Congress in Delhi. The Congress is thus fighting for its life, and one cannot thus rule out its ability to keep its flock together – which will dent AAP more than the BJP. The battle for Delhi is thus entering a crucial phase where both BJP and AAP have nearly equal committed votes. The real fight is thus for the non-BJP, non-AAP vote, which means feasting on the remains of the Congress vote. Three possible outcomes are possible in this scenario. If the bulk of the Congress vote splits half-half, we could have a hung house again If the poorer segments of the Congress vote shift to AAP, we could see Kejriwal in saddle again. If the Congress manages to retain the bulk of its own vote (in December 2013, it got 24.65 percent of the vote, but this time it will obviously be less), it is the BJP that could benefit, since it seems marginally ahead of AAP on the committed partisan vote. For the BJP to benefit, the Congress vote should not fall too sharply this time. The key to a BJP victory lies with how well Modi and Bedi are able to get the uncommitted and Congress votes to their side.