The present national scenario:-Seven months ago the world's largest democracy celebrated the most important festival in their country "the 17th lok sabha elections" which the hindutva brand bharatiya janata party won by a thumping majority winning 303 seats out of 545 in the lower house and the incumbent Narendra modi government begun it's second term and named this government modi 2.0.
In it's first session in parliament they managed to pass the controversial triple talaq bill on 1 august and on 5 August abrogated article 370 and 35 A of the constitution which took away the autonomy of the indian state jammu and kashmir and divided it into two union territories namely ladakh and j&k which didn't see eye to eye to the opposition and the minority muslims.Coming to the month of october 2019 there were elections in haryana and maharastra in haryana they were bound to ally with jjp a local party in order to save it's government and in maharastra it's allies broke their alliance and formed a new coalition with the opposition NCP and CONGRESS.In the winter session of the parliament and in this session the home minister amit shah passed the controversial citizenship amendment bill which redefined the citizenship law of 1955. It was a law first of the kind which defined citizenship on the basis of religion, going against the spirit of the constitution of india. Many protests broke out a lot of groups, ngos, political parties moved supreme court. 5 of the state governments passed a resolution against this law. The people specially the women started sit-in protests all over india and the place which became a centre of attention was Shaheen Bagh.Then came the jharkhand elections. Raghubar das of the BJP was in power of the state. Riding on the feeling of anti-incumbency the coalition of congress and jharkhand mukti morcha sweeped the elections giving one more upset to the centre party.The economic condition of the country was in crisis. The real gdp of the nation for the two quarters of the new government was 5% and 4.5% respectively with raise in inflation and depriciation in demand.Amidst the protests all over india the students of central universities like jamia and jnu were also protesting against the government. Jnu has been protesting for a few months in oppose of their fee hikes.The delhi police showed it's brutality and lathi charged at the students who were protesting against caa. Same way a few days later a violent mob entered in front of the police and attacked the jnu students who were protesting. These reactions further angered the students and the people of delhi.With the growing tensions over the slow economic condition and fear of npr and nrc and country wide protests of women against the caa, following the shaheen bagh model, 2 crore people of delhi entered into poll mode which was to be held on 8th of february.
The Aam Aadmi Party and it's initial invinciblity:-
In 2015 the newly formed aam aadmi party sweeped the elections winning 67 seats out of 70 which was a record on it's own. Being true to their promise of "the politics of change" they started with the change of education system and took some revolutionary steps to change the infrastructure of the government schools and prepared a curriculum of imparting education so good that the outcome of it reflected in the results of the board exams for class XII. 94% of students passed in class 12 which was more than even private sector schools of the state.
Beside education they also improved the health sector by intoducing mohalla clinics and poly-clinics which assured free checkups diagnostics and medicines to every citizen of delhi.They introduced the farishtey scheme which ensures that anyone who met with an accident on road should be admitted to the nearby hospital and the delhi government would pay for the patient. If any government hospital gives time for an operation which longer than one month than the government assured them to move to the private hospitals and the government would pay for them too.
Moreover a year before his poll he declared that the people of delhi doesn't have to pay for electricity upto 200 units and made transportation free for women of delhi in public buses.The budget of delhi raised from 30 thousand crores to 60 thousand crores in five years and CAG declared that delhi government was the only government throughout the country which is running in profit.Backing up on his exceptional performance and his honest image the chief minister of delhi Mr Arvind kejriwal started their campaign by issuing a guarantee card that all of his ongoing schemes will be intact and promised some more schemes in his 10 guarantees. The delhi elections looked easy for them and there was no doubt that they were going to sweep it away.
The launch of the most viscious and bitter-communal campaign india has ever seen :-
The campaign started with a rally of the prime minister in ramlila maidan in which he declared the regularisation of the 1700 colonies in delhi. The home minister of the India Amit shah started his door to door campaign and nukkar sabhas.These were positive moves but other than that the bjp had nothing to cash in. They were incumbent in the municipal corporations for more than 15 years but their work in these department were not something that they can show in exchange for votes. So they turned to their national agendas and started using their most efficient tool in their campaigning communalism in the name of Nationalism and jingoism.
This vicious campaign started with the demonization of the anti-caa protests which were going on in shaheen bagh. Amit shah in his rally in babarpur gave a statement which meant press the button in babarpur with so anger that the current of it is felt in shaheen bagh. Anuragh thakur a minister in the finance department in his rally urged the public to shoot the traitors (the protestors). Pravesh varma an mp from delhi called the cm of delhi a terrorist. Both anuragh thakur and pravesh varma faced a ban of 36 hour for their statements. After the ban pravesh varma again gave a controversial statement that the muslims who have gathered in shaheen bagh will barge into your house and will rape your daughters although majority of the protestors of shaheen bagh were women.
Following these toxic campaign a teenage boy named Rambhakt Gopal from jevar took a gun, on the day of assasination of the Mahatma, and fired a bullet on a student of jamia near the jamia millia university. A few days later another guy name kapil gujjar openfired in shaheen bagh and was immediately arrested. Another guy came in scooty in jamia locality and fired again.
The situation in delhi was so tensed. The polls were approaching and bjp was hell bent on communalising the issue in shaheen bagh and polarising votes in their favour.The prime minister in his rally claimed that shaheen bagh is an experiment rather than a coincidence. The union human resource dpeartment ministed prakash javdekar also called the delhi cm a terrorist.The chief minister of uttar pradesh a controversial bad mouthed orator entered the delhi politics and gave some polarising statements on biryani terrorism etc thereby polarising the environment further. There were 40 star campaigners 200 member of parliaments woeking day and night for the 70 seats of the assembly. Beside being at backfoot in the initial stage the bjp was back in the game.
Aap's retalliation:-
After an exhausting campaign of BJP in which they have used all it's might to polarise the elections they had pulled themselves back in the game. It appeared that they would give a tough fight to the aam aadmi party. Although Arvind kejriwal had plans of his own. The strategy of the incumbent cm showed the maturity he had gained over the years, in his journey as an activist to a politician. He kept himself totally away from shaheen bagh because if he would have taken a stand with the minorities the BJP would have easily polarised the issue and would have damaged his image. He even called himself a devout Hanuman bhakt in a live tv and when he was asked to recite the "hanuman chalisa" he did it on live tv. He even visited the hanuman mandir before polls.
In a form of political attack the bjp called him an atankwadi which he used it emotionally to convey to the voters of delhi that he had done many things for the people in his governance of five years. He even asked his daughter and his wife to come out and speak to the media thereby gaining sympathy from the voters. They attacked them by showing old buildings of schools which proved to be wrong and was clearified by the media next day. They atyacked him on not having cctv cameras which again came as a false narrative as the stage from which the home minister amit shah was giving the speech had 3 cameras over him.
Whatever they tried to portray were countered by the AAP with right facts. Again moving back their narrative to the works they had done in five years. Days before elections Arvind Kejriwal even declared that "if I hadn't worked for the people of delhi, then don't vote for me".
The polling day:-
The polls were about to take place on 8th february the opinion polls conducted by all the major media groups have hinted towards aam aadmi party sweeping the elections away. Even on the eve of the elections the exit polls by every media handle showed clear majority for AAP. Even the media channels like Republic tv and Sudarshan news which are considered as the mouthpiece of the ruling party showed AAP winning elections comfortably.
The day of the poll was a chilly winter day the voting started on 7:00 am and went on till 7:30 pm. Besides being slow in the initial hours the delhi vote percentage stopped at 62.8%. Many big leaders like Sonia gandhi, rahul gandhi, Dr harsh vardhan, Dr Manmohan Singh president Ram nath kovind and many more were seen coming out to vote.
The verdict and advent of a new form of politics:-
The day of the verdict arrived. Right from the morning the early leads declared that AAP is winning a decisive majority.Besides so many good news coming around there were two issue that worried the hell out of the aam aadmi party initially. The deputy to AK, manish sisodia and mla candidate from kalkaji Atishi marlena, both being the architect of the educational reformation in delhi, were trailing from their respective constituencies but with time they emerged victorious. Manish sisodia won his patparganj seat by just 3000 odd votes which can be considered as a tough fight but "all's well, when end's well".
The people of delhi gave a strict lesson to the politics of hate and opted for the government which comes to seek votes in the name of development. The third time chief minister, in his victory speech, mentioned that this is the beginning of a new form of politics, the politics of work(development). They have always mentioned that they were in politics not to do politics but to change it. With their decisive victory they have successfully proved themselves right. As the impact of their model of government can be seen in else where states like maharastra jharkhand and bengal preparing to implement the scheme of free electricity in their respective states.
With a whopping majority in state the AAP government is set to form their 3rd government and start delivering what they had promised in their guarantee cards. This episode of the first election of the decade proved to be an election of hope. The victory of AAP had challenged the jingoistic narrative of the ruling party and had silently portrayed the message that "rashtra-nirman" is the way of 21st century, rather than jingoism in the name of "rashtrawaad".
