election narratives: Can AAP and Congress grab LS seats from BJP in Delhi?

Is the Aam Aadmi factor playing out in other states and is it playing out in the national capital?
Madhavan Narayanan: If you are talking about the rise of the Aam Aadmi Party, it is technically now a national party, which it was not in the last election. So that is a certificate from the Election Commission of India. Apart from the fact that in the past five years, Punjab, Haryana and Himachal have also become important for the Aam Aadmi Party. But more importantly, because of the INDIA alliance, which basically means that votes that were running into each other are now consolidated and usually what happens in elections is that people do not like to waste their votes. So, when there is a higher chance of winning, that increases the votes in favour of that party.

So that way, there are a lot of things going on for both the Aam Aadmi Party and the INDIA alliance. However, BJP’s organisational machinery is strong and from all indications, there are issues like the Ram Mandir and even welfare schemes in states like UP and MP and Rajasthan which will benefit the BJP. We cannot put a finger on exactly the degree, but MP seems to be probably a very strong state for BJP right now.

But one important thing is that the corruption allegation which was central to BJP’s narrative has taken a backseat for two reasons. One is that after the electoral bonds verdict of the Supreme Court, the BJP is unable to take that holier than thou stand which was there earlier and therefore they can match an allegation with an allegation. So you have the excise scam against Aam Aadmi Party. Then, the other thing that has very interestingly happened is that Arvind Kejriwal has successfully converted, in terms of narrative and even the low turnout, apart from the heat wave signals the fact that the Delhi voter can be confused.

A lot of people like to sit at home rather than go in the heat wave and press the NOTA button and that is very significant for me because what Arvind Kejriwal has done very shrewdly is that he has created a certain scenario where he is playing the victim instead of what the BJP paints him out to be. Given that he is very articulate and given that in Delhi Aam Aadmi Party has a very strong organisation machinery, that might be working for him. I do not know what it means in other states of India.

In MP, I would stick my neck out and say MP is a sweep for BJP, but it is very tough for BJP in Bihar and Haryana and Punjab. In fact, Haryana is the opposite of MP, I would say that there is a very clear edge against BJP. So, every state differs. So, it is going to be very interesting. But Delhi is very interesting. I would like to read something in the turnout that is more than just the heat wave because it is unusually low. Let us see how it goes. But I think Aam Aadmi Party has managed to sort of arrest the narrative although there has been a last minute embarrassment for Arvind Kejriwal in that Swati Maliwal episode where his own party, Rajya Sabha MP, ranged against the leadership in some way or the other. If it affects the women’s votes, then BJP has got something swinging.The religion factor has played out during the past two Lok Sabha elections. Are issues like Ram Mandir, Mangalsutra, and most importantly, wealth distribution still really relevant vis-à-vis inflation or the changing nature of jobs or even getting jobs? What really is the key difference that you are seeing in 2019, 2014 and 2024 general elections?
Madhavan Narayanan: Let me first differentiate between the word difference and differentiator. The differentiator is a campaign issue. Difference is a ground reality issue. It is true that the Congress Party started the economic reforms in 1991. It has people like former Finance Minister Chidambaram and Dr Manmohan Singh himself. So, if anybody is talking about a leftward shift because of INDIA alliance coming to power, they are wrong, except for the fact that some of the extra emphasis that is given on infrastructure by the BJP might shift towards agriculture and services and that might have sectoral impact, but it is not going to be there. It is interesting that Mr Modi has been focusing more on the threats rather than the opportunities in the election campaign.

One differentiating factor is that Congress or the INDIA alliance has been focusing on the opportunities for the people and whereas Mr Modi’s campaign has been focusing on threats to the majority as he sees it because his campaign speeches this year have left very little to the imagination. There is a lot of innuendo built around either minorities and some kind of a threat that Hindus seem to be facing or the backward caste among Hindus may be facing from quotas, sub-quotas, and things like that and also the inheritance tax issue which is actually a non-issue because it is never on the table from the Congress point of view, only a stray argument by Mr Sam Pitroda did it.

But the fact that these issues are being taken and Modi is actually making a big deal out of it shows that there is a tendency to emphasise this as a huge social engineering exercise that might affect stability, economic growth, as well as some of the welfare of the established elite. Now, if you look at inflation and economic unemployment, there are two issues at stake. One is that inflation is not an economist’s idea of inflation. The ordinary citizens like to see any price rise as inflation and therefore, if there is no matching income increase, they feel sort of disoriented or get into an anti-incumbent mood and it is possible to read some of Mr Modi’s speeches as a response to this so that he wants to focus the attention of the people on non-economic issues or bigger threats to actually take the attention away from what could be everyday reality issues.

As far as unemployment is concerned, that is another issue because although there are lots of data to show that the jobs growth has not been significant, this week’s big anecdote is that there are 7,000 IITians who have not been recruited at the campus. Some of those issues are related to specific skill sets and qualifications but there is no doubt that in an economy in which one million people are entering the workforce every month, the kind of jobs needed to create a huge impact has not been there.

A lot of development is on infrastructure, which is all capital intensive by and large, therefore, those two issues are ground reality issues. So, electorally, what it means is that this was not on the table in 2014 and 2019. 2014 was a lot about strong leadership and attempted end to corruption. 2019 was Pulwama and some of the national security issues, along with a certain benefit of doubt given to Mr Modi for his decisive personality.

Now, all the factors of 2014 and 2019 are absent. Instead of that, we have the electoral bonds verdict. We also have inflation and unemployment in varying degrees; although statistically it is not significant enough or there are no street protests, it is significant enough electorally.