Capital capers: Conspiracy theories abound on poll eve

If the BJP loses the Assembly election in Delhi, it would be the sixth successive defeat for the party in regional legislative elections

Immediately after a young man shot at protestors against the Citizenship Amendment Act outside Jamia Millia Islamia University, Sanjay Singh, leader of the Aam Adami Party (AAP) suggested on Twitter the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) may use the incident to postpone the Delhi polls. “Afraid of losing, the BJP and Amit Shah are trying to postpone Delhi elections. In the Jamia firing incident, Amit Shah tied the hands of Delhi Police and thus they acted as bystanders” he tweeted. He reiterated the allegation in a press conference later.

Is this imputation just campaign rhetoric or does it have some basis? While announcing the poll dates, Chief Election Commissioner, Sunil Arora, had responded to a question by saying that if the law and order situation deteriorated, the Election Commission was constitutionally empowered to postpone the Delhi polls. As of now, the possibility of postponement seems no more than an apprehension. Two incidents seem to have fed such fears in the charged atmosphere of Delhi assembly poll campaign.

The first is the shooting incident in which a highly radicalised youngster shot at student protestors shouting, “If you want freedom (Azadi), take this”. The police’s lack of alacrity at the site where they were standing on alert, has led sceptics to wonder whether the firing incident was scripted. There are no easy answers for what would have happened had the bullet killed a protestor or if the gunman had been lynched by the protestors. Another incident of gun-fire by a Hindu zealot followed at Shaheen Bagh on Saturday. In both instances the protestors did not react with retaliatory violence.

The coincidence between the shooting by Hindu vigilantes and the extension given to Delhi Police Commissioner Amulya Patnaik is further fuelling conspiracy theories. On the face of it, his one month extension has been given by the Election Commission 24-hours before he was due to retire. But hardly anyone believes that any statutory institution in India works without direction from the powers that be.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union home Minister Amit Shah, BJP working president Jagat Prakash Nadda and other BJP leaders at the party CEC meeting at party office in New Delhi. Photo: PTI

Patnaik’s tenure has been lacklustre and the police force has behaved shamefully under his supervision.  It played an active role in communalising the atmosphere in Delhi when it charged into the Jamia Millia Islamia university library to beat up students and break property. Was it not acting like the Praetorian Guard of the ruling party by failing to arrest even a single masked vigilante who beat up students in Jawaharlal Nehru University. Instead it charged one of the student leaders who was at the receiving end of the violence. The questions being asked are: What is the Police Commissioner being rewarded for? And, what services is he expected to provide in the few days left before polling?

At one level, conspiracy theories may be dismissed as the fevered imagination of politicians in the midst of a campaign. The fear of communal violence is so far based on videos on social media where self-styled “Hinduvadis” and “Rashtravadis” have threatened to forcibly evict the Shaheen Bagh protestors. But is it pure coincidence that the BJP has scheduled a rally by its firebrand ideologue and UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath at Shaheen Bagh, the site of peaceful protest against the new citizenship laws and proposed National Population Register?

Similar sit-in protests at many sites in Delhi that have a significant minority population, might give the BJP a shot at power in the national capital if the election could be converted into a highly charged and communally divisive one.

The party’s attempt to create an incendiary atmosphere in the run up to the polls is evident by some BJP leaders’ statements that if AAP wins, the Indian capital will become like Syria with active Islamic State modules or like Kashmir! Another has warned that if the voters defeat the BJP then the protestors will enter their homes and rape their women. It seems that Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Minister of State for Finance Anurag Thakur, Yogi Adityanath and other foul-mouthed functionaries of the party are all on the same communal page.

Polarisation on religious lines has however not been a particularly successful strategy of late for the BJP. In the Bihar assembly elections of 2015 Amit Shah predicted that celebratory crackers would be lit in Pakistan if the BJP lost. The BJP lost that election. The abrogation of the special status of Jammu and Kashmir under Article 370 to help ‘finish’ Pakistan-sponsored terrorism, brought no electoral benefits in Maharashtra and Haryana. Nor did promises of commencing the construction of a Ram Temple at Ayodhya which would kiss the skies, or of implementing the the newly minted Citizenship Amendment Act against infiltrators help the BJP in Jharkhand.

If the BJP loses the state assembly election in Delhi, it would have serious political consequences for the party and its leadership. It would be the sixth successive defeat for the party in regional legislative elections. It would confirm the public impression that Narendra Modi’s magic has long since waned and the party is on an irreversible downward slide.

It would also demonstrate that “vikas” or the development platform is firmly occupied in Delhi by Kejriwal and not by Prime Minister Modi whose promise of “better days” has been proven hollow. Domestically, the prime minister would have to bear for the rest of his term with his bete noir Arvind Kejriwal setting off his record of good governance against Mr. Modi’s tall claims. Internationally, the BJP’s defeat would send a clear signal that the party is unacceptable to the citizens of India’s capital.

That is why it is important for the BJP to wrest Delhi from the AAP. Some political observers suggest that by its desperate pronouncements the BJP has admitted it is no match for Kejriwal’s AAP. However others given to conspiracy theories claim that should the BJP’s pre-poll surveys show that polarisation will not help it win the Delhi election, then whipping up the fear of imminent communal violence as a reason to ask for postponement of the election might still emerge as a better option than outright defeat for now.

Twitter: @Bharatitis