The election to the legislative assembly of the National Capital Territory of Delhi, scheduled to be held in February, has started gaining national attention not because it is one of the most crucial elections of the country — seeing as the government there wields very little power compared with those in the big states of India — but because of the games the main players in Delhi’s politics play ahead of the polls.
While two of the three main political parties in the state, the Aam Aadmi Party and the Congress, are part of the INDIA bloc at the national level that is aligned against the BJP and the government it heads at the Centre, they fight a bitter battle against each other in Delhi as well as in several other states. The BJP, the principal Opposition party, is leaving no stone unturned to ensure that the AAP does not win a fourth consecutive term. In fact, AAP national convener Arvind Kejriwal has been alleging that the BJP is on a mission to get the names of the supporters of his party deleted from the voters’ list.
Now, Mr Kejriwal has escalated his complaint against the BJP by writing a letter to the RSS chief asking if the organisation that heads the Sangh Parivar approves of the “wrong actions” the BJP engages in. Large scale efforts are being made to cut into the votes of the poor and dalits from the eastern region, and of slum-dwellers, he has told the RSS chief, and has wanted to know if the RSS believes it to be the right thing to do.
It cannot be so that the AAP leader is unaware of the role the RSS plays in the nation’s polity and the relationship it shares with the BJP. It is not a state secret either that the RSS and the BJP were not on the perfect terms during the Lok Sabha elections which played its part in the electoral outcome. Mr Kejriwal must also have noticed the role the RSS played in ensuring the victories of the NDA in the elections to the Haryana and Maharashtra legislative assemblies. By complaining to the RSS leadership about the mischief allegedly played by the BJP, Mr Kejriwal is doing nothing but exposing the Sangh stable before the voters.
Delhi elections have been throwing up results that follow a certain pattern which is that voters here are wont to stand solidly behind the BJP in the Lok Sabha elections but choose to turn to the AAP when it comes to running the government in the National Capital Territory. Thus, too, by anointing the RSS as the grand-uncle of the Hindutva Parivar and complaining to it about the delinquent nephew who is out to spoil the family function, Mr Kejriwal has almost won the first round.
As a government that can potentially face anti-incumbency, the former Delhi CM would want to consolidate his party’s vote bank by setting the topic of the debate himself and forcing his adversary to respond to him. It is a ploy that the BJP has successfully employed in almost every election, but this time Mr Kejriwal has stolen a march over his rival.
