Guess whom AAP really damaged: Not Cong, but Mayawati

Whose vote did the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) really dent in the assembly vote last week? You must be tempted to say Congress more and BJP a little less, looking at the seat count. But you would be only partly right. While it is true that the Congress was crushed, with only eight seats to show for its efforts, the real message is in the vote share. AAP dented both Congress and BJP, and according to some estimates, for every one voter the BJP lost to AAP, the Congress lost six. In terms of vote share, the Congress vote fell from 40.31 percent in 2008 to 24.55 percent in 2013 – it lost two-fifths of its previous vote share. The BJP lost less, from 36.84 percent in 2008 to 33.07 percent this year, a drop by a tenth from its share five years ago. [caption id=“attachment_1283069” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Mayawati the biggest loser in Delhi? PTI[/caption] AAP’s vote share this time was 29.49 percent, according to preliminary computations. From all accounts, Muslims voted in significant numbers for AAP, which again shows that identity politics is fraying at the edges in cities. (Read this Economic Times report to get a sense of what happened in Delhi). Parties cannot win the Muslim vote purely by peddling scare stories about Narendra Modi. This is one reason why the Congress was mauled more by the AAP, and the BJP far less than that. But guess who got the worst shellacking? Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). The BSP vote share, reckoned to be built of strong Dalit support, dwindled from 14.05 percent in 2008 to just 5.35 percent. That’s a steep three-fifths fall – more than 60 percent less than five years ago. This tells us one simple thing: in the urban centres at least, caste identities may count for less than class. Babasaheb Ambedkar was right. The town provides escape from caste – and unfortunately it is an Ambedkarite party, the BSP, that is yet to learn the lesson. Clearly, the message to Mayawati is the strongest. Her Uttar Pradesh Dalit vote may not be about to evaporate, for caste consciousness is probably stronger outside the metros, but the warning signals are clear. Also for Mulayam Singh, who is similarly banking on the Yadav and Muslim vote to give him many MPs - and a shot at power in Delhi if there is a hopelessly hung house.