Arvind Kejriwal as Delhi CM may dent Congress more than BJP

As Arvind Kejriwal is sworn in as Delhi Chief Minister after much swearing at the Congress and BJP, the important thing to acknowledge is that this is the result of three antagonistic parties playing a cat-and-mouse political game contrary to their natural inclinations.

While Congress and BJP have declined to make a lunge for power, which is their natural inclination, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has been coaxed into giving up its opposition role – something it was born to play.

All three parties have assessed their costs and benefits in making their moves and are hoping that in the next couple of months, the dice will roll their way - at the Lok Sabha elections due in April-May and the Delhi assembly election rerun – perhaps around the same time.

All three have, in the process, courted considerable risks too.

The BJP’s political calculation in not staking a claim to form a government despite being the single largest party in Delhi is prompted by the need to be seen as not power hungry before the Lok Sabha polls. Any covert or overt moves to buy MLAs - not easy in the given scenario anyway - would have been held against it. The party, though it won’t say so, may be willing to sacrifice a win in Delhi in order to win bigger in the Lok Sabha polls.

It is difficult to assess whether this was the right choice to make, for, after all, Kejriwal is also making the same choice of heading a minority government and seeking to rule only for a few months.

The BJP could also have hoped to rule for a few months, and legislated some populist things like a Jan Lokpal, announced a power tariff audit before the polls, and regularised illegal colonies. It could have stolen Kejriwal’s slogans and called an early election after the Lok Sabha polls.

Another factor the BJP probably took into account was the possibility of having to face a belligerent Kejriwal disclosing one corruption scandal after another under its watch. Even if it did not pertain to the BJP, the mud would stick, since the BJP rules the Municipal Corporation of Delhi. Perhaps the party is gambling on the fact that in government, Kejriwal will be under greater scrutiny for missteps - if any. It may also be gambling that a Kejriwal who has to run government will not be able to spread the AAP’s tentacles to other metro cities quickly enough before the next Lok Sabha polls.

The risk the BJP is courting is this: what if Kejriwal manages to consolidate on his aam aadmi positioning and the BJP loses not only Delhi, but also a few Lok Sabha seats? After all, how much effort does it take for Kejriwal to announce all kinds of anti-corruption probes even while being CM?

Kejriwal, after all, has to rule only for two months – and few people can presume that he will lose all his goodwill in two months. No party that has just won a big mandate ever loses public support so early. In fact, public support will tend to move in the direction of a likely winner.

To be sure, Kejriwal has probably been cornered by a tactical Congress move to give him support and the BJP’s unwillingness to risk a minority government before the Lok Sabha. After playing holier-than-thou to Congress, Kejriwal risked being seen as someone unwilling to shoulder responsibility when offered a chance.

However, if Kejriwal has bitten the bullet, it is not without his own assessment of a cost-benefit analysis. He has two months to make his moves - on Jan Lokpal, free water supplies, and power tariff audits. In a crunch all this is possible to demonstrate before the Lok Sabha election code kicks in around end-February. Even if he cannot achieve all his goals, he can claim he needs a majority to make his moves – and most Delhi voters may give him the benefit of doubt.

Kejriwal may also be hoping for some Congress errors – excessive belligerence, daily hurdles in the functioning of the government - to call an early election. Early CVoter opinion polls show that Kejriwal may well win an absolute majority in the next assembly polls.

One cannot also rule out the possibility of even cannier calculations on the part of Kejriwal. The jan sabhas held to decide whether AAP should form a government – which turned out to be free publicity melas for Kejriwal – were extensively covered by the media, while both Congress and BJP are left out in the cold. In the next few months, Kejriwal will get saturation coverage by the media – both because of his novelty value, and also because in some segments of the anti-Modi media establishment AAP appears to be the only force that can dent Modi.

The risk Kejriwal faces is the kind of mistakes he himself may commit while in office – but this is a low risk. Among the three parties, AAP has the lowest risk in forming a government simply because it will be forgiven all its faults as it is the new kid on the block.

Lastly, one needs to assess what the Congress’ calculations are in supporting Kejriwal. Clearly, this could be one of the things Rahul Gandhi said we will not “even be able to imagine” about what the Congress will do after its 4:0 drubbing at the Assembly polls.

A more down-to-earth reading would be this: since it was AAP that thrashed the Congress rather than the BJP, linking up with Kejriwal will demonstrate to Delhi voters and Muslims in particular that Congress does not compromise with “communal forces.” Moreover, by aligning with AAP, the Congress can hope to claw back some of the votes it lost to the upstart. Let’s remember, Congress still has around 25 percent of the Delhi vote share – and if AAP is going to do better in the next elections, the votes have to move away from the BJP rather than the Congress for the latter to stem the Modi tide.

The Congress knows that 2014 is not its year. Its best hope is to give the BJP such a slim win – maybe something like the UPA-1 mandate for the Congress – so that it is unable to function. In the process, the BJP will be stuck in a difficult economic situation. This will set the stage for a Congress bounce-back after 2016-17.

However, the risks for the Congress are greater than for the BJP right now with this gambit. Reason, AAP is almost the same kind of left-wing populist party that the Congress always wanted to be. It would not be unfair to say that Congress minus corruption equals AAP. The differentiation with the BJP is starker. BJP too cannot claim to be corruption-free, but it is widely seen as less so, and it is also a right-wing party, and more pro-business. Plus it has a leader who seems to be vibing well on governance right now.

Anti-corruption platforms are difficult to sustain, while governance is a larger platform to own for a political party. The Jayaprakash Narayan and VP Singh anti-corruption movements helped the Janata Party and VP Singh do well in just one election. After that, both lost out – the former to Indira Gandhi’s Congress, and the latter to Mandal-Masjid politics and the BJP.

Anti-corruption alone is not a good enough plank for the long-term, for it is governance that matters.

This does not mean AAP will not dent the BJP in 2014. But it does mean that over the long term, its economic plank will become more important than its pure anti-corruption rhetoric.

As a left-of-centre party, AAP poses a bigger longer-term threat to the Congress than to the BJP, though in the short-term it can be major threat to the BJP as it can eat into the Modi magic and deny BJP a good seat count.

If I were Kejriwal, I would target the Congress more than BJP, for AAP’s real voter base is in the Congress. If I were BJP, I would target AAP as much as Congress, as AAP has the potential to deny BJP a clean win in 2014; and if I were Congress, I would do my best to scuttle AAP. The rise of AAP is more threatening to the Congress.