AAP report card: Repeat of Anna street rallies?

“AAP aur kaun”, a Facebook post after the Delhi election on December 4, may have sounded like yet another smart liner. In reality, it captured the pulse of voters in the capital city much better than all the opinion polls and media commentary. Aam Aaadmi Party, the newest political party, perhaps born by chance if not an accident, has not got the highest number of seats, but even its coming second is being seen as the biggest victory in this round of polls.        

Nobody quite knows why Congress has lost so badly in Delhi or why BJP has just about managed to stay a bit ahead of AAP. But, there’s hardly any doubt that Delhi, which has often been blamed for its indifference to burning issues, has once again shown that it has a mind of its own.

Actually, it may have been much more than just an election for Delhiites. When they went to vote on December 4, the overall wave in the city was akin to what one had felt during the fiery movement against corruption at Jantar Mantar and Ram Lila ground led by Anna Hazare. AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal had teamed up with Anna two years ago and later parted ways.      

At the agitation against the Establishment after the brutal rape and murder of a girl in a running bus little less than a year ago, at the rallies demanding Jan Lok Pal Bill over the last many months, or at the series of protests against corruption, thousands from all walks of life—school and college students, professionals, government officials, ordinary families—turned out to be a part of the ‘movement’, that many criticized and dismissed. The same set of people and more may have voted for AAP on December 4. It is possible that the Delhi election for these people was an extension of the Anna movement that had forced people out of their cosy homes on cold nights and sweaty days.

It’s not the young and first-time voters alone whose votes AAP pulled, but also those of many seasoned voters who were a part of the crowd at the street protests. These are people who have been charmed by the promise of a change and a corruption-free India. A party with no heroes, if you don’t count IIT grad turned income tax official Arvind Kejriwal who has beaten chief minister Sheila Dikshit by a wide margin as one, has shown to the world what it takes to sow the first seed of change.

One can’t be sure how much of a change the likes of Arvind Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia and Rakhi Birla, all coming out of nowhere to turn winners, will be able to usher in, but it’s indeed time to make room for activism in the political space.