The Delhi Poll Results

One of the major electoral surprises early in the year is the outcome of the Delhi Assembly elections that Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) won with the highest tally of seats ever. The AAP won 67 of the 70 seats (95.71 per cent) leaving just three seats for the BJP and Shiromani Akali Dal and nothing for any other party. The Congress which had eight seats in the 2013 elections scored a glorious duck this time with Lalit Maken losing by over 50,000 votes. What is indeed amazing is that the AAP should have been able to win such a landslide victory after its poor showing during its 49-day stint in power after the 2013 elections when the Congress had chosen to prop up a minority government. Obviously there are far too many questions doing the rounds. Foremost among them is: What happened to the BJP and the Modi wave? Uddhav Thackeray had a ready answer to this. He said that a tsumi was always bigger than a wave. Never had the BJP fared so miserably in any Delhi Assembly election. Another question is: How did the AAP mage such a stunning victory despite its poor 49-day performance? During those 49 days the AAP had kept some of its promises relating to water supply and electricity tariff. And despite its unconventiol ways of functioning, some of what the AAP had done must have been recalled with gratitude. Times Now has another explation for the BJP debacle: people have rejected hate politics. In any case, the BJP should now institute an inquiry into what went wrong. And since the Modi wave has failed this time, people will expect very honest answers. The BJP should also find out how many more of its candidates are saying like Kiran Bedi, “I have not lost. The BJP has lost.”