Analyzing the Aam Aadmi Party's debut on the national stage, respected political scientist and psephologist, Mr. Yogendra Yadav, in various interviews, offered some interesting insights. He highlighted the positives: the party's having found a wide support base of enthusiastic volunteers across the country even in its infancy; the more than one crore votes that the party got from the 434 constituencies it contested; the four seats that it secured, comparable to the first-time tallies of parties like the BJP and BSP; the party's having emerged as the alternative to the incumbent and as the foremost challenger of the victor in Punjab and Delhi, respectively.
At the same time, he also acknowledged the alienation that resulted from the AAP's abdication of the seat of power in Delhi - a unilateral decision, unlike the one to form the government, devoid of a 'referendum.' The alienation, of course, made voters skeptical of AAP's viability as an alternative to the BJP.
Speaking of his party's future in Indian politics, he expounded on how AAP, like any political party wanting to be a contender in the elections, has to patiently seek, find and occupy political opportunity spaces. Harking back to the AAP's getting a significantly greater percentage of votes than the Congress in Delhi, he hinted at the opportunity space that has come into being with the drubbing of the Congress. Mr. Arvind Kejriwal's taking on Mr. Modi, per him, was a signal that the AAP would be the principal opposition to the BJP, advocating the cause of the people, irrespective of the number of seats in Parliament - AAP's laying claim to the space from which the Congress has been driven out.
AAP's strategy, no doubt, fits in with the prevailing political scene. In fact, not every voter who chose the BJP, giving the party an unprecedented majority in the Lok Sabha, is rid of apprehensions that the commentators raucously voiced during the elections: of a majoritarian and communal dispensation being at the helm of affairs, jettisoning the development refrain that Mr. Modi indefatigably sung during his election campaign; of an intolerant leader worshiped without the slightest trace of doubt by a cult that will not brook anyone else questioning and criticizing their divinely ordained man; of a complacent government, cajoled by unchallenged power, descending into corrupt ways. Most of these voters chose the BJP because one more term for the UPA would've meant taking a leaking boat into the sea. And, supporting the regional parties, who are guided solely by the sentiments in their states, would have, at best, led to a rudderless Third Front government; that would mean neither leaking rapidly and sinking, nor progressing in any particular direction, but floating dangerously as per the tantrums of the sea. BJP seemed like the ark that could trace the right course, its majority ensuring a stable voyage. Yet, could never means would.
It is to keep the BJP from veering off its mandated course that the pragmatic voter would like to have a strong opposition keeping a close watch on the new government. The cult may not come around, for it thrives on faith. But if the AAP were to regain credibility as a party that is focused on details and not just the theatrics; as a voice of reason, not just a rouser of rabbles; as a consciously courageous outfit, not a gang of thrill junkies, the pragmatic voter would readily entrust the party with the opportunity space that only she can bequeath.
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