Shut Up Ya Arvind
So its done. Congress has decided to go it alone in Delhi for the Lok Sabha elections, instead of any understanding with AAP in the larger “remove Modi, save India” interest / narrative. Months of speculation; “its on-its off” news cycles have been put to rest. AAP leadership has responded in “disappointed” terms, virtually acknowledging that this will help BJP and calling out congress for this “betrayal” of “Save India” mission.
The reasons for this speculation have been clear to all who take interest in electoral mathematics. The congress vote share, which had dipped to less than 10% in 2015 assembly election may have risen to 20% plus (MCD, Bawana) and AAP’s share has fallen from 55% in 2015 to less than 35% over the same time. BJP has mostly held on to its share of approx. 40%. In a 3-cornered contest with such vote shares, BJP sweeps Delhi 7–0 (The recent election result in Jind validated this starkly. 3 cornered contests now favor BJP).
The political reasons for this development are not as easy to understand. AAP came to prominence against Congress corruption and has significant brand equity to lose by aligning with congress. The Congress knows fully well that a 3-cornered contest would give BJP an advantage of 7 seats which in a close election could be crucial.
Here’s how the congress SWOT analysis for “Ally with AAP” would look like
Compare this with AAP SWOT analysis for “Ally with Cong”
Anyone who would have done this analysis, would quickly see the writing on the wall. Congress has everything to lose and nothing to gain by allying with AAP. AAP has significant gains and small loss to brand equity (which can be explained by “Save India’ bigger goal).
Political parties and leaders work on ‘self’ interests before everything else. They may make noises about country, people, party and then self, but all politicians work for self over everything else, especially career politicians (why would anyone do full time politics if not to promote self?).
The only way Congress would have taken the option “Ally with AAP’ is if its leader Rahul Gandhi had a firm resolve to unseat Modi from power. It doesnt seem he is fully convinced in this goal at this time. Congress is still working out its role vis-a-vis growing regional parties.
AAP’s hopes that the “remove Modi’ pressure would be hard to ignore were unfounded. If Delhi had 20–25 seats, this would have mattered. But with 7 seats, Congress argument “lets take out chances and we may win 2 seats on our own under a ‘remove Modi’ wave” would have been strong. For some local Congress leaders even in the worse case of 7 seats going to BJP, seeing AAP suffer and potentially be damaged for long-term is more beneficial than 7 seats loss in Delhi.
So what should AAP do now. Do what brought it to power and prominence in the first place. Go to the people. Its governance record is strong. Its cause of full statehood has majority following. In an election where “Save India” will be the cause, position itself as the best suited and aligned to save India.
Political parties get power from people, not from other (competing) political parties.
If you don’t like my line of argument, you can always say “Shut Up Ya, Arvind”.
ps — Shut Up Ya Kunal is a famous show hosted by Kunal Kamra where he takes an irrverant look at stuff. I hope he doesn’t mind taking “inspiration” from his show title. Even if he does, its done now.
