Zero to hero: What BJP's history can teach Aam Aadmi Party

On a still warm night in Varanasi, Arvind Kejriwal was giving the last speech of his Lok Sabha campaign. At the end his colleagues all lined up with him on stage for one final group shot – Yogendra Yadav, Meera Sanyal, Shazia Ilmi, Kumar Vishwas, Manish Sisodia and many others. It was the Jedi Knights of AAP who had all converged on Varanasi for their mythic battle against their Dark Lord aka the Modi-machine. The crowd applauded wildly, excitedly star-spotting onstage. Is that Shazia Ilmi? Which one is Manish Sisodia? Is Medha Patkar there? But it also felt strangely poignant as if it was the goodbye shot before the curtains came down on an extraordinary political drama. There they were – a motley crew gathered from all over the country for one last reunion, armed, as Kejriwal put it, with just sachchai and imandari - truth and honesty. If exit polls are to be believed, that proved to be simply not enough. The Aam Aadmi Party contested 422 seats in the country. When he launched the campaign in Rohtak, Arvind Kejriwal predicted his party would get about 100 seats. At the closing press conference for Lok Sabha 2014 Yogendra Yadav wisely refused to be drawn into seat predictions or even the lessons learned from its meteoric whiplash-inducing rise from a Delhi party to a national one. “On 16th at 8 pm, we can be retrospective,” he said. “Right now let’s be prospective.” [caption id=“attachment_1520871” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Arvind Kejriwal along with other AAP leaders during the campaign in Varanasi. Getty Images[/caption] The prospects, alas for AAP, do not seem to be panning out so well. According to the CNN-IBN 2014 Exit Poll Survey AAP could get 1 or 2 seats in Delhi or even draw a blank. Worse, one-third of its voters have shifted over to the BJP or rather to Modi. In Maharashtra, its vote share could be about 3 percent and 0 seats though ABP-Nielsen gives it 1. In Haryana, pitched as its next growth arena, a 7 percent vote estimate seems to have crept down to 5. In Uttar Pradesh, its high-profile candidates could all fall by the wayside, 0 out of 76. Punjab is the one bright spot where its vote share actually looks like it went up from a pre-poll estimate of 14 percent to 21 percent translating into anything between 1 and 3 seats. Add it altogether and AAP just scrapes into the Lok Sabha, no matter which poll you choose. ABP-Nielsen predicts 4 seats. CNN-IBN says 3-7. Times Now gives it a soul-crushing 0. Exit polls can be wrong but it seems unlikely they will all be that wrong. That is too bad because every government needs a good opposition and chances are an Arvind Kejriwal or a Medha Patkar in Parliament could have been far more effective as opposition to the BJP than a tail-between-its-legs Congress. Congress will be so busy trying to protect itself from the ghosts of scams past, it can hardly be expected to function as a true opposition. But AAP surely had an inkling it was coming. It must have known that the 49-day Delhi raj hung heavily over its head as it embarked on its national adventure. Over and over again, on street corners far away from Delhi that surfaced as a niggling doubt about AAP. “That decision set it back 10 years. AAP is good in opposition but can it really function in government?” wondered Rakesh Singh, owner of a small independent bookstore on the banks of the Ganga in Varanasi. In Amethi, Sandeep Soni, an MC.om final year student said “No one has worked as hard as AAP, but Arvind Kejriwal should not have resigned. That was a mistake.” And all the hard work AAP did could not erase that spot. But does that mean AAP should jump off a cliff now? Not at all. It’s a party that still enjoys enormous goodwill. [caption id=“attachment_1520875” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Arvind Kejriwal surrounded by a sea of supporters during his election campaign in Varanasi. AP[/caption] Arvind Kejriwal might not be the giant-killer of Varanasi he had hoped to be but rickshaw driver Ashok Sharma was bowled over by him. “I’ve seen politicians since Lal Bahadur Shastri. And I’ve never seen one work as hard as Arvind Kejriwal for our votes. Bechara goes in the hot sun in the villages.” Perhaps it’s the bechara factor which is also its undoing. In liberal circles it sounds like a heartwarming and high-minded gesture for a Kejriwal to take flowers to the auto-driver who slapped him. In the badlands of UP, its goody-goodiness feels a little namby-pamby. Its voters are unsure whether AAP and its band of conscientious bright-eyed volunteers – a sort of desi Peace Corps who had taken leave from jobs in call-centres, IT companies and chauffeuring– could actually survive rough-and-tumble politics in a part of the world where gundas are completely legitimate political candidates. It’s a turn-the-other-cheek kind of party which requires a certain inner resolve and strength. But the perception is a little different. “ They are very good people but they just keeping getting beaten up,” tut-tutted Raj Kumar, a telecom shopowner in Amethi. “Arre, yeh Gandhiji ka zamana thodi hai (It’s hardly Gandhi’s age anymore). I feel pity for them.” Pity is not a vote-getter. What is truly tragic for AAP is that they came up so short in an election that brought out thousands of young voters. This should really have been their election. But Modi capitalised on it instead. “This election is very exciting because both parties are focusing on the youth,” said first-time voter Vartika Singh in Varanasi. “But I chose Modi because I think he will create more jobs.” The Aam Aadmi Party tried to do a different kind of campaign – one that tried to break through the usual silos of caste and religion and creed. Yogendra Yadav tried to break the hold of thondagiri in Mewat where grey-bearded village elders usually decided how everyone else would vote. It got rid of about 10 candidates whose resumes seemed to go against AAP’s principles. And it tried to lead a campaign that was transparent and open and relatively polite. Over and over again, all over the country people said admiringly , whether in Amethi or Mewat, that this time it was hard for AAP to come in as the new kid on the block and break apart entrenched voting habits. But next time, for sure. But AAP will need to hold on to its disappointed volunteers, and persuade them that their hard work was not in vain, to ensure that there will indeed be a “next time” for the Aam Aadmi Party. In Varanasi, 81-year old B.S. Vajpayee, a freedom fighter still bearing the scar of a 1942 wound from stoning a kotwal’s house, said ruefully, “I wish Arvind Kejriwal and Modi should come together. One is against corruption. And the other is for development. We need both.” Both Kejriwal and Modi might shudder at the prospect of such an odd couple but the Aam Aadmi Party should take it as an acknowledgement that their work didn’t go unnoticed even if it didn’t translate into seats. It’s cold comfort and ancient history but it’s worth remembering that in 1952 one party won only three seats in the Lok Sabha elections but didn’t lose faith. That party was the Jan Sangh, and its descendant the BJP scored a measly 2 seats in 1984. The same party is now heading along with its coalition partners, to somewhere around 280 seats. History has a habit of repeating itself, the next time perhaps in favour of AAP.