More than a clash of giants, the AAP-BJP face-off is a fight for survival

“When I was announcing the standing committee election result, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) councillors pushed my chair and attacked me. BJP councillors Ravi Negi, Arjun Marwah, Chandan Choudhary and others inflicted life-threatening attacks on me … Choudhary dragged my chair and pushed me. I ran for my life … They created a ruckus and came up on stage to attack me. I thank the female civil defence personnel for saving me. BJP members physically assaulted Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) female members. BJP, accept your defeat,” Delhi’s newly elected Mayor Shelly Oberoi told reporters last week after the exercise to elect six members of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi’s standing committee had to be abandoned midway. Another attempt to put the elected members of the standing committee in place will be made on Monday (February 27).

For Oberoi (39), an assistant professor at Delhi University with a PhD in philosophy, these events are no longer a novelty.

Her political journey began in 2013 when she joined AAP. Initially, she worked as an activist and participated in many campaigns. In 2020, she was appointed the party’s state vice-president for the women’s wing. In December 2022, she contested the municipal polls from ward no. 86 in East Patel Nagar and defeated BJP’s candidate by a margin of 269 votes. Later, AAP nominated her as its mayoral candidate.

But the rising intensity of clashes between the AAP and the BJP, especially as the 2024 general elections draw close, sets the stage for what many say is a fight for survival — for both the BJP and the AAP.

For decades, the BJP dominated the municipal politics in Delhi. With the rising clout of AAP and the resonance of voters with many of its programmes, at least in Delhi, the BJP’s worries have been rising.

The increasing vote share of AAP in the Delhi Assembly demonstrates that the party is emerging as a major opponent to the saffron party. AAP has managed to increase its vote share from 29.7 per cent in 2013 to 55 per cent in the 2020 Assembly elections. Meanwhile, the national party is still struggling in the range of 30 per cent — 33.3 per cent votes in 2013 increasing to just 38.7 per cent in the 2020 elections.

In retaliation, the BJP is determined to tell the world that AAP is not a band of idealistic ‘clean-up’ disruptionists, but a bunch of self-righteous political leaders who have embraced public life with the twin aims of quick money and power. The Delhi excise scam is a reinforcement of this fact, according to the BJP.

Top BJP leaders say the excise scam investigation will eventually lead to the door of not just Deputy Chief Minister (CM) Manish Sisodia, arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation on Sunday, but CM Arvind Kejriwal.

Once that happens, the AAP bubble of claims that they are the only honest public servants in India will burst. That remains to be seen.

But this much is clear: that clashes between the two groupings are more than a David-Goliath war — it is a struggle for the survival of the fittest.