Analysis Delhi 2015 Election Result

8/9/2019 Analysis Delhi 2015 Election Result

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Analysis of the Results of the

Delhi Assembly Elections 2015 by P. Priyadarshi

[email protected]

The BJP has been losing the NCT Delhi assembly elections consistently since 1998. It lost

the following elections in a row: 1998, 2003, 2008, 2013, 2015 securing almost the same

percentage of votes in all (between 36 and 32 percent). Hence there is nothing new for the

BJP state unit in the 2015 defeat. It has been their habitual performance but for a couple of

MCD and a Lok Sabha performances which did not fall in line with the assembly elections

trend. During this period, in fact the BJP consistently lost its share or the votes polled from

42.82% in 1993 to 32.20% in 2015. Between 1998 and 2015, the percentage of votes has

fluctuated within a narrow range of 36.3% and 32.2%.

If the Delhi BJP leaders covertly claim that the defeat had been due to the import of KiranBedi as the Chief-Ministerial candidate, they are again trying to befool people. For the period

1993 to 2013, BJP had the poorest show in 2013 Assembly Elections when it had the lowest

percentage of votes (33.07%) then far. In spite of so much corruption by the Sheila Dikshit’s

State Government and the Congress Party’s Central Government, the BJP had not improved

its percentage of votes in 2013. So what the analysts are saying today about 2015 results is

more of myth than reality.

Table showing the percentage of votes with seats for the various political parties since 1993

Delhi Assembly Elections (Source: Compiled from the data present over the Election

Commission of India’s web site)

Year/ %

votes

(seats/70)

BJP Congress CPI/CPM/JD/RJD others

1993 42.82% (49

seats)

34.48% (14

seats)

12.65% JD 4 seats

1998 35.82% (15

seats)

47.76% (52

seats)

SAP 3.89% 7% (JD 1 seat) 5.53%

2003 35.22% (20

seats)

48.13% (47

seats)

0.25% 16.4%

2008 36.34% (23

seats)

40.31% (43

seats)

BSP

14.05% (2seats)

0.77% 8.53%

2013 33.07% (31

seats)

24.55% (8

seats)

AAP

29.49% (28

seats)

12.98%

2015 32.20% (3

seats)

9.70% (zero

seats)

AAP

54.30% (67

seats)

3.80%

Sectarian Vote Bank Analysis


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The AAP this time has got less votes than what Congress/JD combine got in 1998, or equal to

what Congress votes and BSP votes aggregated together in 2008. BJP’s votes have stays the

same hovering about 32-35%. A more prudent approach by BJP to achieving success could

have been to increase its share of votes by broadening its support base, rather than sticking to

its narrow, caste-vote-bank base.

Since 1993, under the vote bank politics, BJP had given tickets almost exclusively to Jat,

Bania, Punjabi and Gujjar candidates. This combination has never granted enough votes to

make the party capable of government formation in Delhi. BJP leadership thus far has

believed, although erroneously and arrogantly, that in Delhi only these four (Jat, Bania,

Punjabi, Gujjar) have the capacity to decide the elections’ fates. Yet many votes of these too

have always gone to Congress often because Congress also erected many of its candidates

from these castes.

On the other hand by 1998, the Congress exclusively started bagging the votes of

Bangladeshi immigrants, Backward (OBC) Bihari, and Scheduled Castes of all state origins

and Muslims. This was that segment of the voters that can be said to be the anti-BJP votes.

The OBC-Bihari votes being the supporters of Laloo was going to stay away from BJP as

long as Laloo was being opposed by BJP in Bihar. Up to 1993 elections, the Congress was

seen as anti-Laloo or anti-OBC-reservationist. This had kept the Bihari-OBC away from the

Congress. Hence in 1998, Janata Dal got 4 seats in Delhi Assembly with 12.65% votes. In

other constituencies in that election (1993), the Bihari-OBCs voted for the BJP, considering

Congress as the number one enemy of Laloo. This Bihari-OBC population constituted part of

the anti-Congress vote bank at that time. Hence BJP won in 1993 with 42.82% votes and 49

seats in Delhi Assembly.

But this OBC-Bihari vote bank which had gone to JD and BJP in 1993, was going to shift to

Congress soon by 1998, as soon as Laloo-Sonia or RJD-Congress formulated a firm alliance.

This alliance gave Congress a sufficient edge over the BJP not in Bihar but actually in Delhi

where it defeated BJP time and again and again. Now the new caste combination was going

to be a committed vote bank for the Congress party. From analysis of the shifting votes

between JD-Congress and BJP between 1993 and 1998, it becomes clear that that this vote

bank constituted about 21% of the voters of Delhi. By now it may have increases to 25% or

even more.

The upper-caste immigrants of Bihar living in Delhi, however, have been inimical to

Laloo/reservation (and hence its ally Congress party). They have voted for the BJPdedicatedly even without being taken notice of any by the BJP between 1998 and 2015. Their

actual percentage is not known, But probably they constitute about 10% of votes.

This leaves only 22 to 26% of votes coming to the BJP from other than Bihar-voter sources

i.e. Jat, Bania, Gujjar and Punjabi. The least contribution is from the Gujjar and Punjabi and

most of it comes from the Bania community.

Thus among the Bihari population there is a diametrically opposite voting pattern, OBC

voting for Congress and the Upper Caste voting for the BJP. In spite of BJP’s attempt at

wooing the backwards over the last 15 years by indulging in pro-reservation politics, the

backwards of Bihar are politically very conscious and would flock along the allies of the RJDalone.


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However when Sheila Dikshit made the infamous comment that the Biharis spread dirt in

Delhi, the Bihari vote bank ’s self-esteem was attacked and it deserted the Congress. In this

way this vote bank found its way to the AAP. AAP was able to attract the Bihar votes of both

OBC and the Upper Caste, by giving tickets to several Bihari candidates in the 2015 election,

and unofficial estimate says that AAP has 15 Bihari MLAs in the new assembly. Only twoBiharis were given BJP tickets for the 2015 assembly elections. This was one of the main

reasons of the alienation of the Bihari voters from the BJP in 2015.

Nitin Gadkari’s Atrocities and the Beginning of the Rise of Arwind Kejriwal

Arwind had done no heinous crime by calling Nitin Gadkari “corrupt”. ‘Corrupt’ is a word of

very wide connotation in the Indian society and is considered only mildly abusive if applied

to any politician who had only recently to step down from the post of the Party President onaccount of such charges. People are removed from their positions on account of corruption

charges only if there are seeds of truth at the prima facia level.

In the past, good, innocent and great people in public offices have been baselessly slurred

with abusive words like “mass-murderers” etc and they preferred to bear the pain and insult

internally than going to the courts of law for the redressal of their traumas suffered because of

such abusive slurs. And the people of India rewarded such people for their patience and

silence in the due course of time.

No doubt by pulling Arwind Kejriwal to the Court of Law, and dragging the matter to the

extent that Arwind ultimately ended up in jail in the early June 2014, seemed to be not onlyatrocious and highhanded but also appeared to be an effort by Gadkari who had become

symbol of bully and corrupt politicians to curb the “thinking aloud” by the common man

who cannot generally have the evidence to support whatever he says. Gathering such

evidence involves highly specialized investigating teams, to which a common man has no

access.

One thing became clear to me and obviously to all, that Nitin Gadkari lacked the desirable

human character of magnanimity of the heart. I expected Narendra Ji would restrain and

reprimand Gadkari for what he was doing as he had been stretching the things too far which

would only generate sympathy for Kejriwal and BJP would be getting image of being unfair

to Kejriwal.


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Ironically, the top ministers of the Narendra Modi cabinet do not serve until the pleasure of

the President of India or the Prime-Minister of India, but to the “pleasure of the RSS”. Given

the enormous clout held by such ministers with the RSS, Modi was helpless at this point

when the things were turning ugly.

I do not need to invite Gadkari’s wrath on to myself. But the fact as coming in the

newspapers in 2012 is that Gadkari’s Purti Group of industries had some fishy land deals and

loan arrangements for which he had to leave the post of the President of the BJP. Majority of

the people think, rightly or wrongly, that Gadkari was involved in corrupt practice.

On the other had people see Kejriwal as a basic honest and genuine person. He may be

considered immature or fickle-minded but not rotten. He has the credibility of being an IITian

and also having cleared the tough examination for the IRS. When Gadkari caused Kejriwal to

go to jail in the defamation suit, he was perceived as brutal, bully and unfair. In this ego-

game by Gadkari, he seemed to be winning in the court. Yet this whole episode gave

Kejriwal enormous sympathy of even his adversaries. To the unconscious minds of the people of Delhi he became at par with those who suffered in the jails during the British

period of atrocity. This subtle connect with the freedom fighters gave a boost to the image of

Kejriwal.

Indian people give sympathy for those whom they see being persecuted unnecessarily by a

bully. This is the main reason the Indians have favoured in their hearts Rama and the

Pandavas who suffered in the forest, owing to atrocity by someone big and powerful. I am

sure had Gadkari not done this much of fuss, Narendra Modi would have been too happy to

get rid of him (Gadkari) and let him go from centre to Maharashtra as the Chief-Minister.

However, given that the vengeful, thin-skinned and egoist person he proved himself to be, he

could not be given the independent full responsibility of a state.

With time people forgot the Gadkari’s atrocities. However the forgotten content stays in the

unconscious mind and may never surface again, yet such forgotten incidents too work

unconsciously by creating an intuition or impression, which often determines the voting

behaviour of the individual.

Postponing the Assembly Elections

Again, when the BJP tried to postpone the Delhi elections by attempting to form government

by horse trading, this was not seen by the voters in the good light. It was seen as a greedy

attempt by BJP. Causing delay in the elections only gave benefit to Kejriwal. Earlier people

were angry with him when he had left the Delhi’s Chief-Minister’s post. But time is the best

healer. When a long pause had elapsed, people forgot and forgave Kejriwal for his past

mistakes. Kejriwal took the opportunity of this time to apologise fully from the public, reach

to the public and expose the state BJP unit how it intended to indulge in the horse trading.

I am sure soon after Gadkari’s atrocities, Kejriwal started doing regular yoga and

meditations. It brought a serene calm look over his face which had been lacking cearlier. He

developed better control of his mind and words. Prior to that the only thing Kejriwal had beenlacking was yoga and meditation. He is a vegetarian and does not drink. Love for Indian


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culture he had in his family background. Just given proper insight he learned to make a safe

distance from the naxals. He just did not utter the world “secularism” any more. And he now

fearlessly started saying “Bharat Mata Ki Jai” and “Vande Mataram” which no supporter of

secularist (read Islamist) politics in India would ever dare say. This change had made him a

New Age leader, in the same way as Narendra Modi is a New Age leader (see below).

Poor Governance of Delhi During the President’s Rule (2014-2015)

Administering Delhi during the President’s Rule was the responsibility of the Home Minister

Rajnath Singh which he was expected to manage through a nominated Advisor to the Lt

Governor. However during this period nothing stayed well. The rampant corruption in the

MCD and Delhi Administration’s offices during the last 12 months only disenchanted the

voters.

Visible Lack of Anti-Corruption Intent of BJP

No initiative was visible towards the anti-corruption agenda of BJP either at centre or at the

state level. No anti-corruption act was passed. Public friendly stores like flipkart were

harassed. People now began to think that that the BJP was not keen on rooting out corruption

from the country. Possibly many leaders in the party were corrupt. The Finance Minister’s

reluctance in the Swiss Bank probe issue was increasing the suspicion of the people. The

slow beginning of the end of the honeymoon period had started.

Poor Quality of State BJP Leaders in Delhi

The faces of the Delhi state BJP are far from impressive. None of them is an IITian. None has

qualification from MIT (USA), Harvard, Stanford, Oxford, Cambridge or IIM. They are the

just stale vegetables or rotten potatoes. They look corrupt and degenerated and lack the

spiritual aura a promising politician should have. They are cunning crooks having interest in

property builders and brokers. They usually eat and drink and sit along with criminal minded

people. They can in no way get a single vote of the New Age voters which has emerged

recently over the last 10 years.

The New Age Voters:

In the last elections (Delhi Assembly 2013), there was a new type of voters, the New Age

Voters, which had by and large supported the AAP. This class was the product of the political

renaissance movement taking place spontaneously underneath the surface, being only barely

discernible time and again whenever some individuals like Shiv Khera, Ram Dev, Anna

Hazari etc took the issue of the political rot in the recent past.

In Delhi there is a good segment of voters belonging to the New Age (NA) type. This

scattered population is the product of latest education received away from the feudal bindings

of their native home districts, and now this group of people work and live in an environment

far removed from their social origins in their respective nuclear set ups. They do have their

castes but the caste is just a vestigial label of their pasts not able to exercise any influenceover the most of their decisions and actions including even the matrimonial ones.


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The political consciousness and the voting pattern of this population are dependent on the

socio-political information imbibed from media including TV, newspapers, books and

internet. This group of people generally think independently and individually, and they

cannot be herded. This group can be the most invisible yet most quickly changing vote-

segment, and may affect the outcomes of any election unexpectedly. Their decisions dependon a basket of objective facts and findings, which get synthesized into an impression that

decides the votes.

The New Age voters being a highly floating or volatile vote-segment have the decisive

capacity in the electoral outcomes in Delhi. They have generally hated the cheap rotten BJP

folks of politicians and voted Sheila Dikshit in the past. The segment voted Narendra Modi,

and it seems that in 2015, this vote segment was with Kejriwal.

What is the New Age Phenomenon?

This movement is born out of the sensibility of a sincere, genuine and aware modern man

who seeks to discover value, meaning and hope as well as a certain abstract order in the

existential system of the world, which also includes his country, state, work-place, market,

society and family.

The New Age mindset is spiritual but not religious in the traditional sense. It loves comfort

and luxuries yet is fully concerned about the damages occurring to the environment by

consumerism and its long term consequences which is the result of the growth of the

industrialization process. This mindset necessarily considers the political and ethical

corruption as well as social distortions responsible for ruining the peace, well being and

happiness of man.

The New Age people strive to have an understanding of the phenomena taking place in

society, politics and family, and in this process realise that the Hindu Vedanta philosophy has

provided the very appropriate explanations and solutions for many of these problems and

issues. The New Age people have become fed up with the unreasonableness of the Islamists

demands and their violence; they have become disgusted with the constant dictatorial

pressure by the missionaries to streamlining every mind to a particular faith system; and they

abhor the boorish social policing done by the Hindu outfits who hardly have any link with the

real Indian culture and wisdom. No doubt they hate superstitions yet are open to exploring the

Hindu scriptures and legacy as a part of scientific examinations.

The New Age voters are passionate to preserving individual freedoms, yet have been

horrified by the thugs mushrooming over the masses as demigods and babas on the one hand

and the crooks and power brokers on the other. These people have become thoroughly

disgusted from the demagogues and the ‘bahubali’ (read ‘bully’) politicians of India.

Political Implications of the New Age Voters

This group certainly hated the pre-Modi BJP, which was castism-centred, sops-oriented, anti-

modernism kind of herd of thugs and crooks. People with extremely low knowledge,understanding, sincerity and skills were the most visible and powerful faces of the BJP before


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Modi. The political class of the pre-Modi BJP was characterized by crookedness, selfishness,

thuggery, cheapness, lack of integrity, manipulative-ness, nexus with economic offenders and

mafias.

People of this political class banked on their appeal to the parochial angles of the caste,

culture and religion by erecting themselves as the false messiahs of these causes. The NewAge voter would rather vote the outright corrupt and disgraced Congress rather than the

bunch of the filthy hypocrites which BJP had become before the advent of Narendra Modi.

However, now the condition has changed. Narendra Modi and Satish Shah fit the political

model of the New Age movement well, and the New Age voters had silently discarded the

AAP in May 2015. However by 2015 elections, this segment shifted from BJP to AAP when

a new Kejriwal was standing in their front.

Arwind Kejriwal did have the support of the New Age voters in the 2013 Delhi Assembly

elections. Even after Modi’s arrival in the centre-space of the BJP, Kejriwal was considered

the first option by the New Age voters for Delhi state. It is because in Delhi the New Age

voters were allergic to the names of cheap BJP leaders likes Vijay Kumar Goyal, V.K.Malhotra, Harshwardhan, Krishna Tirath, Vijendra Gupta, Gahlots, Solankis, Bidhuris,

Tokus’s etc. These are all traditional, cheap, highly manipulative brand names, which

actually had no political advantage in the elections.

Hence the win of Arwind Kejriwal needs not be explained in terms of campaigning or

projection of Kiran Bedi or frustration of Harshwardhan. These are all false explanations

given by the false masters of journalism and politics.

Documents

Analysis Delhi 2015 Election Result