Why AAP should negotiate with BJP and Congress

The huge variances in exit polls for Delhi published yesterday underline how unreliable they are. Depending on which poll one looks at, the Congress is predicted to win anything between 10 seats and 20 seats, the BJP between 31 and 41 and the AAP, astonishingly, anything between 6 seats and 31 seats in the 70-member assembly. If one ignores the outliers, which are the predictions of 6 seats for the AAP and 41 seats for the BJP projected by the India Today-ORG poll, all the numbers point to a hung assembly except for the ACN prediction of 37 seats for the BJP. [caption id=“attachment_126813” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Arvind Kejriwal[/caption] Importantly, all the polls see the Congress, the BJP and the AAP winning, at the least, 61 seats between them and, at best, all 70. The four polls, C-Voter, Today’s Chanakya, ACN and India Today ORG, see the three parties getting 61, 67, 68 and 70 seats. The role of the small party or independent, thus, will be negligible in government formation, unless one of the parties is just a seat or two short. If the assembly does, indeed, end up hung, it is impossible for the BJP and the Congress to join hands to form government. The trouble is, it seems impossible to imagine the AAP joining hands with either party as well. This situation, the pure deadlock, will see either a re-election or horse trading. Horse-trading is a real possibility if no party wins more than 30 odd seats; under the anti-defection law, if one third of the elected members defect, they avoid disqualification. In effect, this means that the BJP could form the government if it is able to get, in numerical terms, 7 Congress MLAs to switch over (based on the most favourable projection for the Congress of 20 seats). Both horse-trading and re-election can be avoided – if the AAP considers the possibility of formation of a coalition. They must. As must the Congress and the BJP. The success of the AAP, even in the non-outlier worst case projection of 15 seats, underlines the fact that the Delhi electorate has changed forever. The vote for the AAP is a vote not just against Sheila Dikshit’s Congress, it is a vote against the political establishment as a whole. That is the writing on the wall. Expect, in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the AAP to play a significant role and winning considerable share and seats not just in states where the Congress and BJP currently are strong in, but also in states where the electorate wants to see new thinking and want to reject the corrupt. For example, if the AAP gets its act together in West Bengal, an electorate tired with the continued failure of the Left Front, the Congress and the TMC, will be more than open to giving the AAP a chance. It’s this reality that the Congress and the BJP need to embrace and the AAP needs to take advantage of. Politics, in general, is being forced to clean up its act. In such a situation, the AAP could negotiate commitments from both major national parties if they want to share power in Delhi. For example, they could extract a commitment for an unqualified support for a strong Lokpal Bill in return for support in Delhi. Arvind Kejriwal left India Against Corruption because he believed that the battle has to be fought within parliament and the assemblies. With the performance in Delhi, the AAP could well be in both. If the AAP is a part of the coalition in Delhi, even without winning a single parliamentary seat they could wield power and influence law making.