Syed Nazakat :
He’s known as India’s corruption buster. And now Arvind Kejriwal, a youthful-looking former tax inspector and winner of Asia’s equivalent of the Nobel Prize, has pulled off a stunning near-sweep in New Delhi’s local elections on Tuesday.
The Aam Aadmi, or “Common Man,” party won 67 of 70 seats in New Delhi, the largest single victory ever in India’s capital. The party’s victory also marks the first major loss for the nationalist BJP party since its own sweep of India last spring, which brought Prime Minister Narendra Modi to power.
The scale of victory for the young, idealistic party that champions local needs – including clean water, electricity, and security for women, as well as a “clean hands” anti-graft agenda – suggests the lure of Modi’s BJP is not necessarily a deep one. The loss is being called the end of Modi’s honeymoon less than two weeks after he hosted US President Barack Obama.
The Common Man party’s popular majority of 54 per cent shows that Kejriwal’s support appears to transcend class and religious categories, though whether he can transcend Delhi politics and exercise power outside the capital remains unclear.
“I voted for Kejriwal because BJP has failed us,” says Anil Kumar, a shopkeeper who voted for the BJP last year. “Narendra Modi promised us that his government will be all about good governance and inclusive growth. Now his party men only talk the language of hate and arrogance.”
Tuesday’s election marked the first time that Congress, the vulnerable party associated with the liberation movement of Mohandas Gandhi, failed to win a single seat in Delhi. Yet it’s not the first time that AAP and Kejriwal have swept the polls here. AAP stunned India in 2013 by winning 28 seats in Delhi and defeating the ruling Congress party. Kejriwal then clashed with the federal government over an anti-corruption bill and walked out of office less than two months later. He has since apologised and vows not to leave again.
The success of the Common Man party stems from its sustained campaign against corruption combined with a dedicated army of volunteers. Analysts say Kejriwal also benefited from the perceived arrogance or overconfidence of the BJP, with Modi often deriding Kejriwal as no match for his own persona and political intelligence.
