The suspense over the selection of Delhi’s chief minister has finally ended. Rekha Gupta is the new CM of the city-state and the fourth woman to hold the post. For a party like the BJP, more than a week’s delay in announcing its chief ministerial choice looked unusual. In the Modi-Shah era, dissension within the party over leadership choice is rare. Since most political decisions are centralised in the BJP these days, the unexpected delay is a matter of surprise.
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The party indeed enjoys a huge majority in the legislature and has comprehensively trounced the AAP. But one cannot deny that the AAP still has 43.57 per cent vote share in the state, 22 members in the assembly, and control of the MCD. This was not lost on the BJP’s strategists. The AAP has a major presence in the jhuggi clusters of the city and also in some sections of the middle class, particularly the lower rungs among them. It still has good appeal among the Purvanchali and Vaishya-Bania communities, and despite the BJP’s many alluring promises made during the election campaign, it has good political purchase among women voters, as the post-poll surveys suggest.
The BJP has certainly made inroads into some of the constituencies of the AAP. However, given Kejriwal’s political shrewdness, the BJP cannot undermine possible political surprises.
Coming back to power after 27 years, the party has to take into consideration the altered demographic and political composition of the city. It is no longer the same Punjabi-Baniya-dominated city in which the Jan Sangh, and later the BJP, held ideological-electoral sway. The BJP sensed it in the 1990s when it started losing political ground to the Sheila Dikshit-led Congress. But before it could reset its political bandwidth and do course correction, it was cornered in the electoral game initially by Dikshit, followed by Kejriwal. Hence, now that it is back in power, it wouldn’t want to leave anything to chance, and will do everything it can to hold on, from getting its social engineering right in the formation of the ministry to adjusting its politics to the new regional-ethnic arithmetic of the city.
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It is, nevertheless, too early to pass any judgement on the future of the AAP in Delhi. It is no longer a party with a difference enjoying an ethical-ideological edge over its opponents. But whether it still has the elements of a “movement-party” that can galvanise cadres for any political agenda at the drop of a hat would be tested for the first time in coming years when it will play the role of the opposition. It will be keenly watched whether it will be able to retain its social base and bounce back to politically corner the BJP on the tall promises it made during the election.
A party like the BJP, which acts like an electoral machine, would have weighed all the pros and cons in selecting its chief ministerial face for Delhi. The choice of Rekha Gupta as the chief minister of Delhi ticks many boxes. Her identity as a woman belonging to the Vaishya community seemed to have convinced the central leadership of its possible social impact. Since both these social constituencies — women and Vaishyas — have been anchors of AAP politics in the state, Gupta nicely fits the bill. In her, the BJP has found a good combination to replace Kejriwal, a Vaishya, and Atishi, a woman.
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Gupta has been a municipal councillor with reasonably good administrative experience. Since she has come out of the ABVP, she also enjoys an unquestionable ideological pedigree. Most importantly, she has risen from the ordinary rank and file of the party and is a non-dynast, a factor that seems to have put her ahead of Pravesh Varma, whose father was Delhi CM. Selecting a dynast would have dented Modi’s unique selling point in national politics and blunted the BJP’s offensive against the Congress and regional parties.
It is a matter to watch whether Gupta proves to be the Dikshit of the BJP or ends up as another Sushma Swaraj of the party in Delhi.
The writer teaches Political Science at Aryabhatta College, Delhi University
