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Elections in Delhi: who will the state vote for?

By Uday Dandavate | PUBLISHED: 12, Nov 2014, 14:16 pm IST | UPDATED: 14, Nov 2014, 13:44 pm IST

Elections in Delhi: who will the state vote for? What will people of Delhi opt for?

With all the three  parties expressing their inability to form a government, decks have been cleared for Delhi Assembly elections.

Over the next several weeks I would like to engage my friends on Facebook to reflect over the conditions prior to the Delhi elections, so that we insulate ourselves from media manipulation and focus more on hard facts.

The last Delhi assembly election provided citizens of Delhi the first opportunity to express their anger against the rampant corruption of the Congress Party.

The spectacular wins of the Aam Aadmi Party rekindled the hopes of Delhi citizens and the rest of the nation that it was possible to expect an alternate model of politics if people voted for candidates who did not fit the typical professional politician mold. At the time Delhi voted for candidates who would:

•    serve people rather than rule over them
•    dismantle the nexus between business and politicians
•    give local communities control over investments made by the  government
•    bring transparency in how elections are funded and who they are indebted to for funding their campaign.
•    bring end to the exploitation of citizens by people in positions of power
•    work towards building a new model of development that is based on a participatory engagement of citizens in transformatory and innovative projects.

The victory of AAm Aadami Party put in place a fresh group of individuals in the assembly who-

•    Were not professional politicians
•    Were driven by ideological commitment to cleanse politics
•    Were drawn to politics by a desire for change than by greed for personal wealth
•    Were not afraid to challenge vested interests
•    Were impatient in implementing their ideas of a corruption free participatory democracy.
•    Could feel the pain of ordinary citizens and were adamant and audacious in fighting exploitation of the citizens by the powerful.

In some people’s view AAP made error of judgment in forming a government  and others believed they betrayed people of Delhi in walking away from the government. Yet, a lot of people in Delhi from Rickshaw walas to middle class citizens agree that they began to see a different kind of politics- most of it good and some of it unnerving.

For the past 8 months the BJP has been vacillating on a decision to dissolve the assembly and going back to people for a fresh mandate only because the victory was not assured and options for attracting defections from AAP MLA’s was not working. While Lok Sabha elections put the BJP in a more confident mindset, reverses in the first round of by elections to state assemblies (especially in UP) put a question mark on the possible outcome in Delhi. Victories in Maharashtra and Haryana have now made the BJP more confident of the magic of Narendra Modi-Amit Shah juggernaut.

A new model of asking for absolute power at every level of governance seems to have had an impact in Haryana and Maharashtra. It is also becoming clear within the BJP organization that Mr. Modi will continue the process of consolidating his power within the party and the government by placing his personal loyalists as Chief Ministers. Through clever media campaign Mr. Modi has been able in making a powerful case for “absolute power equals good governance”. I am afraid we are repeating the mistakes from the history, ignoring the fact that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Will Delhi citizen give a mandate for absolute power? Will the euphoric support for an experiment in participatory democracy promised by the AAP during the last election be abandoned in favor of centralization of power in the hands of Mr. Modi and Amit Shah? Will people ignore obscene amount of money being spent in election campaigns on promoting a monolithic power structure? Do people still care for transparency in funding of elections? Do they care who their elected representatives feel indebted to for funding their elections?

The real point is- does Delhi want a fundamental change in politics? Will citizens of Delhi allow AAP to continue its experiment despite some of the mistakes they have made, or would they rather abdicate their own desire for participating in driving change, challenging the corrupt system and instead settle for electing a party that knows how to work the system?