I have been observing this for a while now. To be precise, the phenomenon began at the fag end of December, when Arvind Kejriwal returned to the fold of the believers as he coughed his way through an oath to become the CM of Delhi. It had started a little before, actually, the BJP fingering the callous disavowal by Kejriwal of his public pledge, wherein he had sworn on his kids that he would not form a government with the support of the Congress.
Departing the venue of the swearing-in ceremony, the BJP CM aspirant ridiculed the spectacle of AAP ministers-to-be riding the metro to the Ram Lila Maidan. He claimed he had himself taken the metro to work many times, and so had many of his party legislators. In the days that followed, Kejriwal declined an official vehicle, and requested and rejected a bungalow that he had chosen to be his official residence. He also refused the elaborate security detail that garlands a CM. AAP ministers were given SUVs without the disdained red beacons for their official movement in Delhi, the rider being that they would board the vehicles at the Secretariat, having reached their offices by themselves. The vehicles would not be part of a long convoy, either, the security escorts having been deemed unnecessary, ornamental insulation from the voters. As the media hailed these tangible measures of austerity and shoved Kejriwal into the race for 7, RCR, the BJP and their 'friends' slackened their stinging of the suicidal Shahzada, and became warier of the muffled crusader.
Social Media was awash with acclaim for Manohar Parikkar, BJP's Goa CM, who has refused to have the tax-payer fund his housing and transportation needs. That he had done it well before Kejriwal was highlighted to argue that the latter was not the trailblazer he was being hailed to be. Kejriwal's ministers certainly didn't make it easy for him to escape the attention of his baiters, who gloated as they jeered at his inability to rein in his party members. The Lokayukta laws of Uttarakhand and Chattisgarh, enacted by BJP governments, were referred to in downplaying the hubbub around the AAP's Jan Lokpal Bill. The AAP government's tardy approach to investigating corruption charges against the ex-CM and other Congress members was used to insinuate that the AAP is the grand old party's team B. Kejriwal's resignation was suggested to be the next part of his strategy to get into Parliament, the Delhi government phase having served its purpose. Now, the buzz is about the violent protests by the AAP cadre at the BJP HQ in Delhi in retaliation to the hindrance Kejriwal encountered in Gujarat at the hands of BJP workers. The images of injured BJP men and people in AAP caps wielding sticks and slinging stones have been used to further discredit the AAP's non-violent means claim.
Yet, putting things in perspective, what the BJP is managing to do is refrain from contributing to the Congress' fast-depleting mindshare. The snub of the Congress seems astute in that it divests the Congress claim of competing with the BJP of all its shreds of credibility, barring a fig leaf held in place by some ardent and/or deluded Congressmen. If the polls are a battle of perception, it makes sense to discredit the Congress' being perceived as a contender. Publicizing the AAP by attacking them, of course, seems to run against this strategy. But, everyone knows, apart from the devotees of the broom-brandishing messiah, that AAP's performance on the national stage will not be as potent as its debut in Delhi. AAP neither has the pan-India presence nor policy visions that aren't mostly chimerical and may help persuade the public to vote for them. The shadows of the BJP and the AAP might seem well matched, but the one who is closer to the wall will dictate what's written on it. The disenchantment with AAP's dissolution of the Delhi government and the conduct of its cadre when in power might well have nudged the public further into that castle of resistance, the confines of which they may refuse to abandon to solely pursue the repetitive, but no longer enticing, high-pitched, anti-corruption tune of the piper. Given winning is everything, why not joust with someone you are sure of defeating, possibly even drubbing? Why not pick on someone who is not your own size?
Comments