Competitive populism: On parties and the Delhi Assembly elections

As campaigning intensifies for the Delhi Assembly elections, scheduled for February 5, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress are raining promises of welfare schemes on every section of voters. The BJP, which was critical of the ruling AAP’s unrestrained populism as “revdi”, or a freebie culture, has not only promised that the schemes that are already in place in Delhi will continue but has also promised more. The sum of ₹2,100 that AAP has promised to women every month has seen the BJP and the Congress offering ₹2,500 instead. In the speeches of Chief Minister and AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal, there is an attempt to instil fear in the electorate that if they vote for the BJP, the free electricity, water, health care and education available to the poor would stop. He is also promising to extend the gravy train to the middle class; more specifically to sections of society such as dhobis, pujaris, residents’ welfare associations and autorickshaw drivers. But he has also made a public admission that three guarantees, namely, cleaning the Yamuna river, ensuring that Delhi’s roads meet European standards and providing 24X7 clean drinking water to all, have not been fulfilled, and that if reelected, will have the AAP government focus on the issue of unemployment.

The BJP’s campaign has centred around the promise of a double-engine government if it is elected to govern the National Capital Territory. It is also making an all-out effort to tarnish AAP’s claim of incorruptibility. Allegations of corruption in the allotment of liquor licences and the exorbitant amount of public money that was spent on the official residence of Mr. Kejriwal are the BJP’s talking points. The AAP government has not tabled 14 reports by the Comptroller and Auditor General in the Delhi Assembly that the BJP and the Congress say highlight proof of AAP’s corruption. The BJP has promised to put out these reports in the public domain and constitute a probe. The central pitch of the Congress, which has seen its Chief Ministers, current and former, from other States campaigning for it, is that Congress governments have been more efficient and prompt in delivering welfare schemes. The Congress is also trying to invoke the past, highlighting the infrastructure development in Delhi that was carried out under former Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit. The party has sensed that the late leader still evokes some nostalgia in the Delhi electorate. The party has criticised Mr. Kejriwal’s silence on the demand for a caste census. The BJP is fielding Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath as his appeal may influence migrant voters from U.P. and Bihar, now the fastest growing voters’ segment in Delhi.