India's National Magazine
From the publishers of THE HINDU

Vol. 15 :: No. 25 :: Dec. 05 - 18 , 1998

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COVER STORY

A fresh polarisation in Delhi

Voting patterns in the various constituencies in Delhi indicate that the Sikh and Muslim voters have shifted their loyalty back to the Congress(I).

VENKITESH RAMAKRISHNAN
in New Delhi

THE outcome of the Delhi Assembly elections represents the worst performance of the Bharatiya Janata Party, or its earlier avatar the Jan Sangh, in the national capital in three and a half decades. The Congress(I) has not only won a two-thirds majority, with 51 seats in the 70-member Assembly, but polled about 48 per cent of the vote. The BJP, which won 49 seats and 42.82 per cent of the vote in the 1993 elections, has now to be content with 15 seats and 35.5 per cent of the vote. For the first time since 1952, the forces of Hindutva have suffered electoral reverses in Patel Nagar and Sadar Bazar, which were considered bastions of the Jan Sangh and later the BJP.

The Congress(I) overcame its multitudinous organisational deficiencies and trounced the BJP on the strength of its campaign built around the rise in the prices of essential commodities, especially onions, and the failure of the BJP Government in Delhi to improve civic amenities in the national capital. The BJP's pre-election manoeuvres, including the change of Chief Minister 40 days before polling, the raising of the issue of the anti-Sikh riots of 1984 and repeated references to the corruption scandals during the Congress(I) regimes, did not have any significant impact on the electorate.

The electoral defeat is bound to affect the BJP's organisational machinery in Delhi in the long term. Already there are indications that the factional struggles in the State BJP unit are intensifying. Reacting to the verdict, outgoing Chief Minister Sushma Swaraj said: "The BJP has been defeated not by the people or the Congress(I) but by the leaders of the BJP themselves." Without mincing words, she said that the BJP's national leadership must take disciplinary action against those who worked against the party's interests, whatever be their position in the party. Although Sushma Swaraj refrained from mentioning names, her targets were veteran BJP leaders and former Chief Ministers of Delhi Madan Lal Khurana and Sahib Singh Verma; the feud between the factions they lead have plagued the party for years. Sushma Swaraj was brought in as Chief Minister just before the elections to check the clashes between these factions, but this did not help the party.

The rift in the party was widened further when the election in Nangloi constituency was countermanded after the murder of Samata Party candidate Ved Singh, allegedly by supporters of Sahib Singh Verma. The murder led to widespread protests against the BJP, especially against Sahib Singh Verma. Even the Samata Party, a national-level ally of the BJP, participated in the protests. Supporters of Khurana and Sushma Swaraj campaigned against Sahib Singh Verma and accused him of earning a bad name for the BJP.

SHANKER CHAKRAVARTY
Sheila Dikshit.

There were certain parallels between the BJP's predicament in this round of elections and that of the Congress(I) in 1993. The results of the 1993 elections to the newly formed Delhi Assembly were delectable for the BJP, which won a two-thirds majority. The Congress(I), which won 14 seats and 34.5 per cent of the vote, cited factionalism as the reason for its rout. A senior Congress(I) Working Committee (CWC) member said then that factions led by Sajjan Kumar, H.K.L. Bhagat, Jagdish Tytler and R.K. Dhawan had fought one another rather than the BJP. Today, the BJP leadership talks in similar terms.

The BJP's rout cannot be attributed to intra-party problems alone. The record of the BJP in Government in Delhi and as the leader of the coalition ruling at the Centre did nothing to enhance its electoral prospects. In the event, there was a massive swing away from the party in terms of vote share compared to the Lok Sabha elections held earlier this year. In the Lok Sabha elections, the BJP led in 52 of the 70 Assembly segments and polled 50.7 per cent of the vote, while the Congress(I) led only in 16 Assembly segments and secured 42.6 per cent of the vote. The BJP has lost nearly eight percentage points in its vote share in Delhi in the last eight months, while the Congress(I) has gained nearly six percentage points.

In the Lok Sabha elections, the BJP won six of the seven seats in Delhi. However, the results of the Assembly round indicate that the party is now in a minority in all the parliamentary constituencies. It has lost in four of the five Assembly segments in the New Delhi parliamentary constituency and in seven of the 10 Assembly segments in South Delhi. In Outer Delhi, where elections were held in 20 of the 21 Assembly segments, the Congress(I) won 15, the BJP won four and a Congress(I) rebel won one. Of the 20 seats in East Delhi, the Congress(I) won 15, the BJP four and a Congress(I) rebel one. Of the four seats in Chandni Chowk, the Congress(I) won three and the Janata Dal won the Matia Mahal seat. In Karol Bagh and Sadar parliamentary constituencies, which have five seats each, the Congress(I) won four each and the BJP one each.

Voting patterns in areas such as the Muslim-dominated Chandni Chowk and the Sikh-dominated Tilak Nagar and Jungpura show that these communities appear to have moved closer to the Congress(I) again. The Sikh community had almost veered towards the BJP after the anti-Sikh riots of 1984. As part of its election campaign, the BJP reminded the Sikhs of the Congress(I)-sponsored riots in the aftermath of Indira Gandhi's assassination and even involved Shiromani Akali Dal leader and Punjab Chief Minister Prakash Singh Badal and S.S. Ahluwalia of the Congress(I) in this exercise. Ahluwalia sent a series of letters to Sonia Gandhi as part of this campaign, including one in Italian, for dramatic effect. But the effort yielded no fruit.

Similarly, Muslims had become alienated from the Congress(I) in the period between 1989 and 1992, during the build-up and the eventual demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya. However, the results of the November elections reflect a change of heart on the part of the Muslim voters. In many Muslim-dominated areas, voters seemed inclined to view the Congress(I) under Sonia Gandhi as being different from the Congress(I) under P.V. Narasimha Rao, who was seen as being soft towards the Hindutva agenda of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.

V. SUDERSHAN
Former Chief Ministers of Delhi Madan Lal Khurana and Sahib Singh Verma and Chief Minister Sushma Swaraj.

Voters in Delhi have also been sensitive to matters of governance. According to a pre-election opinion poll conducted by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) for The Hindustan Times, 63.5 per cent of the respondents considered price rise as the biggest electoral issue, 47.8 per cent said that the law and order situation in Delhi had deteriorated during BJP's five-year rule, nearly 50 per cent were unhappy about the shortage of drinking water, and 57.7 per cent had a similar opinion about electricity supply.

Delhi seems to have voted against the BJP with a vengeance, even overlooking the Congress(I)'s foible of selecting bad candidates. In this process, other secular parties such as the the Janata Dal, the Samajwadi Party (S.P.), the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) were swept aside. The S.P., the RJD and the BSP failed to win even a single seat; the Janata Dal won just one seat compared to the four it had in the previous Assembly. The Janata Dal has been on a downward slide since the 1993 Assembly elections. In the 1998 Lok Sabha elections, it secured 2.48 per cent and 2 per cent in the November elections.

The Congress(I) leadership's position that the secular vote would finally rally to the party has been vindicated. Besides, the elections have given it the advantage of being accepted as the most potent force against the BJP. Congress(I) leaders say that this polarisation of anti-BJP votes will remain a long-term phenomenon in the capital.

It is introspection time for the BJP, and its biggest task will be to find a leader who is acceptable to its various support-base groups such as Punjabis, Jats and Sikhs. For the time being, it has realised that Sushma Swaraj, who hails from Haryana, is incapable of rallying these different communities under the party flag. The immediate reaction to the election debacle was a spurt in factional strife; if this is any indication, the party has a difficult task ahead. Meanwhile, Sonia Gandhi nominated Delhi Pradesh Congress(I) Committee chief Sheila Dixit to the Chief Minister's post.