If Kejriwal wins Punjab, it will alter course of politics (Comment)
Saturday - February 11, 2017 10:55 am ,
Category : OPINION & INTERVIEW
The emerging consensus that there is a wave in favour of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in Punjab is terrible news for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress, not because they will have lost the election but because the road ahead will become that much more difficult.
The image of Narendra Modi, after reversals in this round of election, will have lost sheen irretrievably. The euphoria his victory in the May 2014 general election had generated should have begun to evaporate after two successive AAP victories in Delhi in December 2013 and February 2015, the Rashtriya Janata Dal-Janata Dal-United (RJD-JDU) victory in Bihar followed by BJP defeats in the 2016 assembly elections in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry.
These did not appear to demoralise him. But defeat in key states in the current round will create internal restiveness and aggravate the political effects of demonetisation.
For the Congress, the AAP's further rise spells an existential danger. Its inability to reclaim lost ground in the northern states will begin to look like a pitiable reality, exactly as the visage of the Gandhi-Nehru parivar will. Holding on to Akhilesh Yadav's coat-tails in Uttar Pradesh will carry neither Rahul Gandhi nor the Congress very far.
That Priyanka Gandhi may give the party a helping hand at a critical juncture is a hope some peripheral Congress leaders nurse. If her behaviour were anything to go by, she is by some accounts in indifferent health and cannot focus even on Rahul and Sonia Gandhi's constituencies, Amethi and Rae Bareli, which have been assigned to her for safe-keeping.
But she clearly has a tremendous sense of survival. There were fears during the 2014 general elections that these seats would be swept away in the Modi wave. That her mother and brother may not be in the next Parliament was an unnerving prospect. She stiffened her sinews and in two weeks of campaigning ensured success for her sibling and her mother. She has talent but, apparently, is short on stamina.
There are several reasons for the Congress' expected defeat. Among the reasons is the habitual delay in naming the chief ministerial candidate. Amrindar Singh was projected as Chief Minister far too late in the day.
Congressmen murmur but never actually say that the Congress President will not project anybody who might have the potential of eclipsing the family, particularly Rahul Gandhi. I am not implying Amrinder specifically, but there are instances.
I have always maintained that in 2014 Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit may well have come up trumps in the state had the party High Command by hint or gesture talked of her in Prime Ministerial terms. Remember the state victory would have been her fourth in a row. Her late husband had been a popular IAS officer; she had been a minister in the Prime Minister's Office.
The image of Narendra Modi, after reversals in this round of election, will have lost sheen irretrievably. The euphoria his victory in the May 2014 general election had generated should have begun to evaporate after two successive AAP victories in Delhi in December 2013 and February 2015, the Rashtriya Janata Dal-Janata Dal-United (RJD-JDU) victory in Bihar followed by BJP defeats in the 2016 assembly elections in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry.
These did not appear to demoralise him. But defeat in key states in the current round will create internal restiveness and aggravate the political effects of demonetisation.
For the Congress, the AAP's further rise spells an existential danger. Its inability to reclaim lost ground in the northern states will begin to look like a pitiable reality, exactly as the visage of the Gandhi-Nehru parivar will. Holding on to Akhilesh Yadav's coat-tails in Uttar Pradesh will carry neither Rahul Gandhi nor the Congress very far.
That Priyanka Gandhi may give the party a helping hand at a critical juncture is a hope some peripheral Congress leaders nurse. If her behaviour were anything to go by, she is by some accounts in indifferent health and cannot focus even on Rahul and Sonia Gandhi's constituencies, Amethi and Rae Bareli, which have been assigned to her for safe-keeping.
But she clearly has a tremendous sense of survival. There were fears during the 2014 general elections that these seats would be swept away in the Modi wave. That her mother and brother may not be in the next Parliament was an unnerving prospect. She stiffened her sinews and in two weeks of campaigning ensured success for her sibling and her mother. She has talent but, apparently, is short on stamina.
There are several reasons for the Congress' expected defeat. Among the reasons is the habitual delay in naming the chief ministerial candidate. Amrindar Singh was projected as Chief Minister far too late in the day.
Congressmen murmur but never actually say that the Congress President will not project anybody who might have the potential of eclipsing the family, particularly Rahul Gandhi. I am not implying Amrinder specifically, but there are instances.
I have always maintained that in 2014 Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit may well have come up trumps in the state had the party High Command by hint or gesture talked of her in Prime Ministerial terms. Remember the state victory would have been her fourth in a row. Her late husband had been a popular IAS officer; she had been a minister in the Prime Minister's Office.
