What a fantastic ‘repeat performance’ by the Aam Aadmi Party led by Arvind Kejriwal, in Delhi! The Delhi voters have given a resounding victory to Kejriwal and his team to the extent that the BJP could not even touch the double figure while the Congress bit the dust. As an ex-AAP activist and member, I am glad of course because the AAP which was in the infant stage till a few years ago, has made tremendous progress in various fields and maintained a good rapport with the people of Delhi. Thus the party won their trust and confidence again.
However, I am dead against the “freebies” policy of the AAP CM and his government due to which of course, AAP scored good number of votes and seats. Obviously, the Delhi public love the idea of good governance and freebies! It’s like have the cake and eat it too! And, so they have reposed their high hopes on Kejriwal to get everything either free or at a low price! Kejriwal should take these aspects into consideration if he wants to run an effective government and not make the coffers of the Delhi government empty!
Still, AAP could beat a mighty party like BJP …even with Hon’ble PM Narendra Modi and Amit Shah at the helm of the affairs and when a whole lot of ‘heavyweights’ of the BJP were fiercely campaigning against the AAP.
Now, the scene is that Kejriwal has a clear mandate and he will have his own say in the administration. If you have sweeped the polls in the Capital city of Delhi, it is rather equivalent to winning 2 or 3 states of India. But, Kejriwal and his team need to bring out a lot of changes in the style of governance as we had seen many unpleasant episodes during his last term which must be avoided.
Both AAP and the BJP need to shed the vengeance attitude and must co-operate with and reciprocate with each other for the development of the capital city which is badly affected by pollution, traffic problem, crime and so on. Both the parties should stop spewing venom on each other but maintain decorum and discipline their members (including ministers, MPs etc) and party activists.
The BJP has been shown its place as there were certain cronies who were into tarnishing the image of the PM and the party by indulging in fanaticism and unsavoury acts and provoking statements. The drawback of the big shots’ in the BJP is that they chose to run a polarised campaign and without fielding a CM candidate against a credible and popular incumbent. The name and face of PM Narendra Modi and also of Amit Shah cannot be always used everywhere to garner votes. They are okay at the national level and for general elections. But when it comes to state assembly elections, the CM candidate must be projected for the people to judge.
All said and done, it is right time for the BJP administration to do some introspection and reconciliation and take extreme corrective measures if it wants to regain its winning track as elections are not too far off in Bihar, Bengal and UP. There has to be a serious “Chintan Baitak” to work out strategies from now on.
Less said about the Congress, the better. It looks that the Congress was not interested in winning but had only wanted to keep the BJP out. Still today, the Congress is being rejected outright everywhere and it hardly makes any presence in the elections. There has to be a total revamp of the top leadership if it has to survive.
By the way, which channel or the exit-poll survey body will pat its own back for “near projection of the results?” Every channel would now say: We said it right…..we were on dot !! As for me, I still feel “Exit Polls” must be banned.
(The views expressed by the author in the article are his/her own.)
