The resounding victory of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in the national capital civic polls has sent a strong message to the other rival political parties. The Delhi based AAP has propped itself up as a competitive alternative to the Indian National Congress in Punjab and Delhi. The party is also attempting to expand its reach into states where the Congress and other opposition parties are lacking in order to mount a strong challenge to the BJP.

AAP’s victory in civic polls has also halted the BJP’s winning chariot in Delhi civic polls. The AAP has scored five seats while contesting the Gujarat assembly elections. With the result of the Gujarat polls, Kejriwal’s AAP is firmly entrenched in national politics.

However, the Congress regained its power in Himachal by defeating the BJP, whereas the BJP received only a consolation prize for its historic victory in the Gujarat assembly election. And in Delhi, it seems both the BJP and Congress are far behind in matching the charisma of Arvind Kejriwal.

Of late BJP’s lamppost syndrome is forgotten in the Delhi elections, where people would elect a minion against a titan, irrespective of the stature of a leader in front. Meanwhile, the BJP unit- Delhi is miserably failing to understand that the national capital cannot always be relied on Prime Minister Modi.

Now, voters are more intelligent and educated. They no longer cast their ballots solely for the sake of their names. The educated voters in Delhi can easily differentiate between parliamentary elections, assembly elections, and MCD elections. They have repeatedly demonstrated their intelligence, first in the 2014 legislative election and then again in the 2019 legislative election and 2020 assembly election. The AAP appears to be quickly learning its lesson, whereas the BJP has been making the same mistake for the past two decades.

The Delhi BJP has been banking on Prime Minister Narendra Modi to do the trick for them. Despite the BJP’s aggressive campaign against the AAP in this election on the corruption issue, Delhi voters still see Arvind Kejriwal as a crusader against corruption and a leader capable of bringing a new revolution to the state and country.

The BJP is yet to get a prominent face to counter the charisma of 56-year-old Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal, who has been dominating Delhi politics for the last 10 years. The BJP had previously suffered two major setbacks following the sudden deaths of Sahib Singh Verma and Madan Lal Khurana, which had created a leadership vacuum in the Delhi BJP.

The senior Delhi BJP leaders, Dr. Harshwardhan, Manoj Tiwari, and others who led the party in the assembly elections, have failed to create any aura among the Delhi voters to defeat the AAP. There are some other known faces in Delhi, such as Gautam Gambhir and Meenakshai Lekhi, but they too do not have such mass appeal to defeat the 10-year-old Kejriwal government.
The Delhi BJP is still uncertain about whether to promote any leader who can lead the party in the coming elections against AAP. The Delhi BJP requires a charismatic leader who will lead the party from the front, but the party’s central leadership appears uninterested in nurturing a local leader in the nation’s capital. On the condition of anonymity, a local party leader stated that it appears that the central leadership has been ignoring the Delhi BJP for a long time for some unknown reason.
     Nonetheless, Congress has been in denial mode and is still living in the past. The grand old party needs to understand that it was their golden era and they have to look forward, and their third consecutive defeat in the national capital has collapsed the party structure in Delhi. The party ruled the national capital for 15 years, but in the 2015 and 2020 assembly elections, it failed to win a single seat, and in this MCD election, it was defeated again.
It has been observed that the Congress purposefully did not show up to deny the BJP’s changes in the assembly and MCD elections. But, if true, it would be a suicidal move for the grand old party, as it has already been shrinking significantly in national politics, and no one can win the war relying on others.
The outcome of the MCD election in the nation’s capital will make the fight for the upcoming  parliamentary election in 2024 more interesting, with the AAP aiming to win about six seats and the BJP concentrating on maintaining its lead by winning all seven seats, while Congress still appears to have no idea what to do.
The party wants to strengthen its standing in states where the Congress and other opposition parties are weak in order to compete successfully with the BJP.

Sunil Thapliyal has been active journalist over a decade, views are personal