Mufflerman has Swept Delhi Clean with a New Improved Broom!

My chance encounter with an auto rickshaw driver, who took me to my meeting venue, had foretold me the Delhi election verdict in August, 2014 itself. He was all praises for then disgraced and seemingly hopeless arvind kejriwaal post Varanasi debacle and predicted with dead certainty that Kejriwalji will return to power. I listened to the Autowallah, maybe because I was stunned by his pronouncements of declaring a spent force to not only take note of but also emerging as a winner. Blinded by the BJP onslaught of everything AAP did and stood for, I, like many, chose to downplay and almost laugh off the the Autowallah.

As it stands, the Autowallah has proved more correct that he sounded that time. AAP has caught not only the imagination of aam janta by its ubiquitous and soon-to-be legendary muffler but has set a new standard for political parties in all areas like canvassing strategy, leadership projection, perception building, manifesto making and everything related to Indian election. The canvassing approach of Mr. Kejriwal has the ring of a familiar style of an apologetic yet sincere next-door guy who comes to us after a tiff and says: Yaar galti ho gayi, ab jaan loge kya (Bro! I made mistake, would you kill me for that!). It seems this style has worked on Delhi electorate. The landslide victory of AAP, as newspaper headlines would scream, has cleansed every single sin of Kejriwal and the electioneering of Yogendra Psephologist Yadav has been vindicated.

Amit Shah, the Chanakya of BJP, must be wondering what went wrong when almost everyone saw the writing on the wall for BJP in advance from the moment Kiran Bedi was foisted upon the party. This self-professed master stroke of his has turned into a reason of stroke for many leaders within the party. Delhi electorate, disappointed by the ever increasing communal voices of wayward leaders and failing in promises made by BJP, has spoken and spoken loudly and clearly. BJP would not have thought that even leader of opposition post would become such a distant dream! What a mirror image of Loksabha election of 2014 in Delhi election of 2015! Has the magic of Modi fizzled out or is it Bedi who could not take the heat of either television interviews or election campaigns. In between her campaign, she lost her voice literally and post election, she has lost her face as well.  How prudent a decision of Bedi was to decline the one-to-one debate offered by Kejriwal. She appeared to be constantly avoiding a direct face-off with Kejriwal. Voters must have taken it as her fatal frailty and not as feminine modesty.

Ascendancy of AAP can find its parallel only in the downfall of the Congress. It seems the hidden agenda of both AAP and BJP was to take congress down to zero which they have achieved without much effort on their part. Certainly, Grand Old Party has refused to learn its lessons but Ajay Maken and Kiran Ahluwalia must be congratulated for taking up the gauntlet and keep trying to turn a clearly bilateral fight into a tripartite one.

Short period of forty nine days was wasted in staging Dharna, tackling alleged prostitution ring, lamenting over non-cooperation of opposition parties and scoring brownie points. AAP will have to be cautious not to repeat the past mistakes and be diligent in implementing its transformative agenda as pledged and not indulge in political posturing and non-significant issues. It has come on the tall promises of lowering electricity rent, ending corruption, promoting liberal politics, reining in corporates-politicians nexus and so forth. It is right time and bold opportunity to meet those promises. No more hanky panky, please.

Listening to Aam Admi does pay off as it has done for AAP Party. I would be now more willing to pay heed to my autowallh Bhaiya, they clearly are more clued-up on the pulses of Aam Janta than Chanakya surrounded by too many wannabe Chandraguptas.