Mufflerman is now Godzilla: Arvind Kejriwal's 54% victory is baap of all mandates

Delhi is an unusual election in many ways. It fact it is an outlier by any standard of Indian voting behaviour seen in the recent past. The reason is not the landslide win for Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which gives it a 60-plus seat majority in a 70-seat assembly. What makes Delhi different is that, possibly for the first time in several decades, one party is likely to receive more that 50 percent of the popular vote. [caption id=“attachment_2090005” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] AAP chief and soon to be Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal. AFP[/caption] Narendra Modi’s vote in 2014 was 31 percent for the BJP. Akhilesh Yadav’s vote in 2012 was under 30 percent for a majority. Almost no party which swept to power has got more than 35-40 percent of the popular vote. Voting trends available till around 10.30 am, which have held all through the morning, show AAP with 53.2 percent of the total vote, against the BJP’s 33.8 percent and Congress’s 8.5 percent. The rest got peanuts, if at all. Seldom has one party got this kind of mandate ever in a fragmented Indian election. This is a mandate like almost no other. But, first, it is necessary to assess what happened, before we discuss the implications of this vote. The BJP, despite the pathetic seat count, has actually held on to its voter base. It got more votes than what it did the last time, but it got almost none of the incremental vote. It did not benefit from the collapse of the Congress vote or from the new voters who entered EVM booths for the first time this time This means it has a base to build on, but must actively woo the new demographic in the coming months and years to stay relevant. The Congress has been trounced badly. It has seen its 2013 vote down to a third of its previous level, which means the party is rapidly becoming irrelevant in Delhi, too – a state it ruled with distinction for 15 years upto December 2013. That only party (BSP) got past the 1 percent mark tells its own story. It means Delhi is beginning to transcend the caste and community divide. Neither INLD (Jats), nor the Akali Dal (Sikhs) got to 1 percent. Looked at another way, the Delhi vote is an even bigger threat to the regional parties in other parts of the country than just for the BJP. Probably for the first time ever, though we saw glimpses of it in the May 2014 elections too, a state is voting more on class lines, even though AAP has demonstrated a hold among all classes. The underclass and the minorities were the bedrock of AAP’s support, even though it did well in all segments. What unites all classes (at least temporarily) is probably the idea of less corruption and good government, but this will not endure. Any state with finite resources will have to decide how to allocate its spending. It cannot pay Pappu, Rahim and Singh uniformly. It has to choose its priorities, and, in the process, it can alienate some segments. Logically, the best way forward for AAP to create a long-term viability for its political position is to concentrate on delivering public goods – law and order, clean water, reduction of corruption, good social and physical infrastructure, including better education and health facilities – and go easy on private goods (freebies, cheaper power, food and other subsidies). The AAP manifesto has, however, promised too much here too. AAP will succeed not by extending the reach of the state endlessly, but by redefining its role in order to allow priority to the provision of public goods and services. Private goods and subsidies should be the exception. But its aam aadmi base will be demanding more freebies. This is where AAP’s 50 percent plus vote share is worrisome. This means everybody has voted for it for his or her own reason, and so the chances of being able to meet everybody’s excessive expectations are remote. I would not like to be in Arvind Kejriwal’s shoes right now. His mandate is truly scary.