Tuesday, February 10, 2015

AAP landslide victory: random thoughts

Surely even Arvind Kejriwal and AAP supporters never thought they would win all but 3 seats in the Assembly. That's almost 96% of seats. Is that a record for any election in India? Remember, AAP didn't win a single seat in Delhi in the Lok Sabha elections.

This is what the voters said: "Dear Aravind, you asked us to pardon you. We have done that. You said we didn't give you a clear mandate, last time. We have given you that now. Let's see how you deliver on your promises."

Kiran Bedi and BJP leadership in no small way contributed to the party's rout. She was crticising BJP and Modi till a few months ago. She walks in to that same party, heaps platitudes on the party and Modi; and gets anointed as the party's chief ministerial candidate. Huge goof-up by party leadership.

This is not the first time voters have spoken decisively. In 1977, Indira Gandhi was swept out of power, and totally untested Janata Party came to power. When people saw that the alternative simply didn't work out, in the first available chance, in 1980, they voted her back to government.

Another example is the defeat of the urban-centric trio of Atal Behari Vajpayee at the Centre, Chandrababu Naidu in Andhra Pradesh and S M Krishna in Karnataka in 2004. Anyone following the media -- that was bristling with the India Shining campaign -- would have felt that these three would easily come back. But it was not so.

Even now, the voters have said that they know clearly the difference between Central government and State government. Many, especially the BJP thought that having won the Lok Sabha election, it should be a cakewalk in Delhi. Complacency has done them in.

1 comment:

  1. Earlier it was lesser of the two evils. Fed up with the antiques of the Congress, people thought BJP would be better (with a glint of promise from Modi)
    Then again, fed up with the antics of the BJP (How many lakhs suit?) people have given a chance to AAP. Development by BJP is OK but not at the cost of re writing the constitution of India.

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