Winning ways

There is space for alternative political narrative

The Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) impressive performance in Gujarat, where it has defied a 27-year incumbency to improve its tally from 99 seats in 2017 to 156 this year, may well dominate the electoral narrative. But on the larger canvas, a more sobering reality is evident: Of the three recent elections, the Centre’s ruling party has lost two. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) overturned the BJP’s 15-year hegemony in the municipal elections in Delhi despite the fact that the latter involved several party stalwarts to campaign for it. In Delhi, the AAP won 134 seats at the cost of both the BJP and the Congress in 250 wards. The BJP won 104. In Himachal Pradesh, however, the Congress has bagged 40 out of 68 seats in what is a traditional swing state, where voters rarely return the incumbent. A poor governance record as well as vicious infighting within the state unit of the ruling party may have weakened its chances. But it is noteworthy that the vote shares of both the BJP and Congress are almost on a par. The Congress certainly put up a more spirited fight in the state, though its victory here could as well be partly attributed to its promise to revert to the old pension scheme, an important issue in the state.
 

All told, however, all three principal parties in the fray — the BJP, Congress and AAP — have something to cheer about. The BJP has retained its bastion in Gujarat. The Himachal Pradesh results suggest that the Congress may not be a spent force just yet despite its conspicuously lacklustre campaigning in Gujarat. Though a BJP sweep in Gujarat was never in doubt, especially with the Prime Minister participating in the campaign, the huge margin of victory was less expected. It is possible that the presence of the Congress and AAP in the state has turned out to be the BJP’s advantage in the first-past-the-post system, with the Opposition vote being split between the two. On its part, the BJP, too, may not be entirely disheartened by the results in the Delhi municipal elections since it managed to hold on to its vote share and remains a force to be reckoned with.
 

But the big story of the week has been the emergence of AAP on the national stage and its steady move towards meeting its ambition of becoming a national party. To earn this status, among other conditions, a political party needs to be recognised in at least four states and win at least two seats and 6 per cent of the votes polled in the Assembly election. The party is in power in two states —Delhi and Punjab — and won two seats in the Goa Assembly. In Gujarat, the AAP has obtained around a 13 per cent vote share and won in five of the 182 seats. This steady progress by AAP has come in just 10 years of its founding. The upcoming 2024 Lok Sabha elections may still be a long shot for the AAP in terms of emerging as a significant Opposition party at national level. But its record so far suggests there is space to be exploited for an alternative political narrative from those projected by the BJP and Congress.