AAP faces anti-incumbency - Will Kejriwal hit a hattrick shot?

Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) supremo and ‘mufflerman’ voters outreach recorded call counts his achievements in health and education and targets BJP for its alleged failure to control crime in the national capital but maintains a deafening silence on corruption which was the driving force behind the launch of India Against Corruption (IAC) movement that later led to the founding of AAP.

The party is focusing on beneficiary schemes and tagging soft Hindutva to it to take hat-trick shot at power. He has dished out more “revdi” (freebies) in recent days. From being a crusader against graft in his early days, the mechanical engineer and Income Tax Commissioner has metamorphosed into an archetypal savvy politician.

Will he be able to achieve a third consecutive term? A psephologist who has been involved in pre-poll surveys since the initial days of the party says that AAP faces anti-incumbency with the voters in the Delhi Assembly poll due in February.

A former political worker earlier associated with Arvind Kejriwal is of the opinion that infighting and corruption charges may also add to the party’s woes. A bag of corruption charges against him and his ministers Manish Sisodia and Satyendar Jain hangs heavy over the party’s head.

It is Kejriwal who plans and strategizes AAP politics. For this election he has also engaged professional election strategy consultant, Indian Political Action Committee (I-PAC).

When Atishi Marlena replaced him as the chief minister of Delhi, she got herself photographed sitting on an extra chair put up beside the one on which Kejriwal used to sit. It was a clear message to the electorate: that the “messiah” will return to fulfill their millenarian dreams which he has shown them when he took the political avtar more than a decade ago. Kejriwal had resigned from the chief minister post after the Supreme Court granted him bail with stringent conditions like barring him from visiting the chief minister office or the Delhi Secretariat or signing official files unless it was required and necessary for clearance by the lieutenant governor of Delhi.

But his recently announced schemes—Mukhyamantri Mahila Samman Yojana and Sanjeevani Yojana—have run into troubles with the Women and Child Development Department saying no such schemes have been notified. It bodes ill for Kejriwal schemes when he would start implementing them if elected to power.

The draft electoral rolls published this past October said that there were around 71 lakh women and over 24 lakh senior citizen voters respectively in Delhi. AAP has planned to hold “Revdi Par Charcha” where party leaders and volunteers will hold “2,000 meetings every day” across the 70 assembly constituencies.

The intensification of rivalry between AAP and the Congress in the recent days may also go against the former. Kejriwal has threatened to lead a campaign for ousting Congress from the INDIA alliance if the party does not take action against its national treasurer Ajay Maken for commenting that it was a mistake to have an alliance with AAP in Delhi in the last Lok Sabha election.

The Congress has also brought out a white paper targeting AAP as well as BJP, blaming them for taking no effective measures to check pollution and maintain law and order in the Capital.

But AAP has somehow been able to keep the aura of good governance intact among the voters. People in general, particularly the Capital’s working class, are supporting him for the monetary benefits they have been receiving under different schemes. They also have words of praise for Kejriwal for fulfilling the mundane promises.

The lame duck organisation of the Congress and the lack of ‘charismatic’ leaders in both opposition parties– BJP and the Congress– in the state are a great relief for AAP who this time around is feeling the heat. Also, in the past elections, voters’ behaviour has been different in the Lok Sabha and the Delhi Assembly elections.

In the Lok Sabha election, BJP decimated AAP thrice, 2014, 2019 and 2024. But the AAP avenged the humiliation by reducing BJP to the single digit twice, 2015 and 2020. AAP also is clinging onto this behavioural conduct of the electorates to first past the post.

Except the Hindutva and freebies, BJP has nothing in their poll bag to offer. In the absence of a face who can counter Kejriwal, the right-wing party is also banking on the supposed Modi magic. But Modi failed to deliver both in the 2015 and 2020 Assembly elections. However, the party's local unit leadership morale is high after the unexpected win in neighbouring Haryana and the unprecedented performance in the Maharashtra Assembly election.

The party is battle ready to upset the AAP applecart. BJP has launched an aggressive campaign in slums and reaching out to AAP’s bastion auto-rickshaw operators with promises of cashless medical treatment and life insurance schemes. Both these segments are considered AAP strongholds. Absence of a vote-catching face vis-a-vis Kejriwal’s perceived charisma is hurting their chances.

Though the Modi magic worked in the last Lok Sabha election as well, with the BJP garnering about 54% vote-share (AAP got 24% and Congress around 19%), it got reversed in the assembly polls. In the 2020 assembly election, the BJP managed less than 39% votes, while AAP secured over 53% and the Congress got a measly 4.26%).

The job of assessing poll prospects has no credibility, after the pollsters had eggs on their faces when their 2024 general election prophecies were put upside down in the results. They faced similar humiliation in the Haryana and Maharashtra Assembly elections. Earlier, their Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh polls predictions also fell flat. This could keep a flicker of hope alive for the BJP, and it might prove a dark horse in the Delhi Assembly election.

BJP is also banking on the anti-incumbency factor and voters' boredom with the AAP. Aggressive and Hindutva-oriented campaigns by leaders like Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and also Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other such leaders are also giving them hope to end their so-far-failed shots at power in Delhi. The success of the ‘Ek hain to Safe hain’ slogan campaign calling upon the Hindus to come together under one umbrella to counter Rahul Gandhi’s slogan of ‘Jiski jitni Abaadi, uski utni Hissedari’ in the Haryana and the Maharashtra elections may also be giving a scare to Kejriwal.

AAP is also having sleepless nights over repeating the same magnitude of wins as it did in the past two elections. According to many poll watchers, Kejriwal might have an edge. Will Kejriwal get crowned Delhi chief Minister third time or will BJP stop him in his tracks? How will Congress fare after their drubbings in Haryana and Maharashtra. No party, neither BJP nor AAP or Congress, can say anything for sure. Neither psephologists can dare guess it.