Monday 17 February 2020
Sunday 16 February 2020
Saturday 15 February 2020
Thursday 13 February 2020
Why ‘winners’ pick Prashant Kishor
If Arvind Kejriwal was going to sweep the election anyway, why did he need Prashant Kishor asks Shivam Vij in The Print?
Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal and political strategist Prashant Kishor at the AAP office in New Delhi
Political strategist Prashant Kishor picks winners, his critics say. He appoints himself as consultant to a party, most likely to win an imminent election, and then takes credit for a victory he had nothing to do with, according to his critics.
But it gets curious if you flip the question. Why do winners need Prashant Kishor?
When Kishor starts working on an election, the critics say ‘What can he do?’ When the election is won, they say ‘What did he do?’
Why PK?
If Arvind Kejriwal was going to win Delhi 2020 anyway, why did he bring on Prashant Kishor? Why did he tweet announcing he was welcoming on board the Kishor-mentored Indian Political Action Committee?
Thanks to the anti-incumbency against Chandrababu Naidu, Jagan Mohan Reddy was going to become the chief minister of Andhra Pradesh in 2019 anyway, we are told. If it was so certain, why did Reddy go and get Prashant Kishor to design his entire campaign for a full two years?
Captain Amarinder Singh is a well-respected politician in Punjab. The Aam Aadmi Party did not have a face in the Punjab 2017 elections. It was Captain’s time. He won the election on his image. Which begs the question: why did Captain need Kishor?
For the 2015 Bihar assembly election, Nitish Kumar tied up with his bête noire Lalu Prasad Yadav. The caste combination was such that the coalition would have won anyway, some say. They had the Congress with them too. Sounds easy. But then why did Nitish Kumar need Prashant Kishor? And why did Nitish Kumar value Prashant Kishor so much that he later made him vice-president of his party?
Narendra Modi is the champion king of Indian politics. Prashant Kishor’s critics say he did not make much of a difference in Modi’s 282 seats in 2014. If this was the case, why was Modi wooing Kishor back in 2017?
Kishor’s critics admit that he has a tough battle ahead in West Bengal, where the BJP is putting everything at stake. But if Mamata Banerjee wins the Bengal election early next year, the same critics will say: Didi is a popular leader, the BJP had no face, she was going to win anyway. What did Kishor do?
The political commentators in Delhi feel the DMK is going to win the 2021 Tamil Nadu assembly election. It’s the DMK’s turn, and now that the father is no more, Stalin will be the CM. Fair enough. Why then has the DMK signed up Prashant Kishor? Are the foolish to give him attention and credit?
But over the next few months, we’ll be told by these very political commentators that Tamil Nadu is uncertain because of the Rajinikanth factor. If Stalin still wins, the same critics will say Rajnikanth was never a factor, and Kishor just landed up to take credit for Stalin’s pre-destined victory.
----Also watch
----
After the fact
An election victory often looks like a foregone conclusion only after the fact. Just go back and check your own tweets and WhatsApp messages over the last two weeks. Many of you were wondering if the BJP’s Hindutva push can defeat the AAP.
The fact is, the AAP was down and out after three terrible election defeats: Punjab and MCD in 2017, and the Lok Sabha in 2019. They needed Kishor because they were, in fact, not certain of winning the 2020 Delhi election.
In Punjab, the Aam Aadmi Party was at one point in time said to be winning 100 of 117 seats. Captain Amarinder Singh desperately wanted Kishor because it was his last chance to be chief minister and he didn’t want to lose it. Many senior pundits and analysts felt that the AAP was winning Punjab, right till the results came out. Once the results were out, they said Captain had to win anyway.
Captain had lost two consecutive elections — one as an incumbent and the one as a challenger. This performance saw him booted out as Punjab Congress chief. The main problem with the Punjab Congress was factionalism. Kishor did many things in terms of strategy, branding and communication, but the most important was that he went around managing each faction to make sure they let Amarinder win this time. By contrast, we have just seen how the Congress couldn’t decide between Ashok Tanwar and Bhupinder Singh Hooda Tull the very end in Haryana, and thus lost a winnable election.
Jagan Mohan Reddy was so down and out in Andhra in 2014 that he seemed to be over. The Telugu Desam Party poached a third of his party’s MPs and MLAs. Reddy’s image was of a corrupt, feudal, arrogant dynast. His victory was far from certain.
In Bihar, Nitish Kumar’s stock in 2015 was quite low. He has had a crushing defeat in the Lok Sabha at the hands of the BJP, and Amit Shah was expanding the party into new territories like a conqueror. Yes, Nitish Kumar did tie-up with Lalu Yadav, but the critics said the alliance won’t last. The BJP was banking on their fighting over seat-sharing and other matters, and the alliance would break up even before the election. Kishor made sure that doesn’t happen. He made himself the common channel of communication between the two leaders to ensure there is no disharmony. (Fun fact: Kishor was against the Nitish-Lalu alliance. He insisted he could make Nitish win on his own but Nitish didn’t have the risk appetite for that.)
When the patient doesn’t take the medicine
While the critics say the political consultant chosen by winners gets no credit for the victories, the consultant gets all the blame for the losses. Hence, they say that Kishor could not make the Congress party improve its prospects in Uttar Pradesh in 2017.
In UP in 2016, Kishor achieved the Herculean task of making Rahul Gandhi travel the state for a consistent campaign on farmers’ issues without a single day’s holiday. But that was step one — or just the first “module” as these consultant types say. There were many other things lined-up non-stop to build momentum. The key was to declare Priyanka Gandhi as the chief ministerial candidate. The Congress party has agreed to all these proposals, and, as only the Congress can do, went back on them. All the plans were laid to waste.
It was a case of the patient not taking the medicine for the full course and then blaming the doctor.
Kishor’s mistake was that he didn’t part ways with the Congress there and then. The critics do have a point about what came thereafter: he became overconfident he could make an SP-Congress alliance win the state.
Malice and misunderstanding
Some of the dismissal of Kishor comes from malice: the durbaris around top politicians don’t want to lose their jobs to an American-style consultant. This was certainly the case with Congress.
Kishor is India’s first western-style political consultant. And the first man through the door often gets shot. There are others, but the political system doesn’t want them to be in the limelight, taking credit. The system wants to treat consultants as “vendors”. That is bound to change, sooner or later.
Some of the criticism of Kishor comes from a lack of understanding of this beast called modern political campaigning. What exactly is it that Prashant Kishor does? We’ll have to ask Mamata Banerjee, Jagan Mohan Reddy, Nitish Kumar, Captain Amarinder Singh, MK Stalin or Narendra Modi.
Political strategist Prashant Kishor picks winners, his critics say. He appoints himself as consultant to a party, most likely to win an imminent election, and then takes credit for a victory he had nothing to do with, according to his critics.
But it gets curious if you flip the question. Why do winners need Prashant Kishor?
When Kishor starts working on an election, the critics say ‘What can he do?’ When the election is won, they say ‘What did he do?’
Why PK?
If Arvind Kejriwal was going to win Delhi 2020 anyway, why did he bring on Prashant Kishor? Why did he tweet announcing he was welcoming on board the Kishor-mentored Indian Political Action Committee?
Thanks to the anti-incumbency against Chandrababu Naidu, Jagan Mohan Reddy was going to become the chief minister of Andhra Pradesh in 2019 anyway, we are told. If it was so certain, why did Reddy go and get Prashant Kishor to design his entire campaign for a full two years?
Captain Amarinder Singh is a well-respected politician in Punjab. The Aam Aadmi Party did not have a face in the Punjab 2017 elections. It was Captain’s time. He won the election on his image. Which begs the question: why did Captain need Kishor?
For the 2015 Bihar assembly election, Nitish Kumar tied up with his bête noire Lalu Prasad Yadav. The caste combination was such that the coalition would have won anyway, some say. They had the Congress with them too. Sounds easy. But then why did Nitish Kumar need Prashant Kishor? And why did Nitish Kumar value Prashant Kishor so much that he later made him vice-president of his party?
Narendra Modi is the champion king of Indian politics. Prashant Kishor’s critics say he did not make much of a difference in Modi’s 282 seats in 2014. If this was the case, why was Modi wooing Kishor back in 2017?
Kishor’s critics admit that he has a tough battle ahead in West Bengal, where the BJP is putting everything at stake. But if Mamata Banerjee wins the Bengal election early next year, the same critics will say: Didi is a popular leader, the BJP had no face, she was going to win anyway. What did Kishor do?
The political commentators in Delhi feel the DMK is going to win the 2021 Tamil Nadu assembly election. It’s the DMK’s turn, and now that the father is no more, Stalin will be the CM. Fair enough. Why then has the DMK signed up Prashant Kishor? Are the foolish to give him attention and credit?
But over the next few months, we’ll be told by these very political commentators that Tamil Nadu is uncertain because of the Rajinikanth factor. If Stalin still wins, the same critics will say Rajnikanth was never a factor, and Kishor just landed up to take credit for Stalin’s pre-destined victory.
----Also watch
----
After the fact
An election victory often looks like a foregone conclusion only after the fact. Just go back and check your own tweets and WhatsApp messages over the last two weeks. Many of you were wondering if the BJP’s Hindutva push can defeat the AAP.
The fact is, the AAP was down and out after three terrible election defeats: Punjab and MCD in 2017, and the Lok Sabha in 2019. They needed Kishor because they were, in fact, not certain of winning the 2020 Delhi election.
In Punjab, the Aam Aadmi Party was at one point in time said to be winning 100 of 117 seats. Captain Amarinder Singh desperately wanted Kishor because it was his last chance to be chief minister and he didn’t want to lose it. Many senior pundits and analysts felt that the AAP was winning Punjab, right till the results came out. Once the results were out, they said Captain had to win anyway.
Captain had lost two consecutive elections — one as an incumbent and the one as a challenger. This performance saw him booted out as Punjab Congress chief. The main problem with the Punjab Congress was factionalism. Kishor did many things in terms of strategy, branding and communication, but the most important was that he went around managing each faction to make sure they let Amarinder win this time. By contrast, we have just seen how the Congress couldn’t decide between Ashok Tanwar and Bhupinder Singh Hooda Tull the very end in Haryana, and thus lost a winnable election.
Jagan Mohan Reddy was so down and out in Andhra in 2014 that he seemed to be over. The Telugu Desam Party poached a third of his party’s MPs and MLAs. Reddy’s image was of a corrupt, feudal, arrogant dynast. His victory was far from certain.
In Bihar, Nitish Kumar’s stock in 2015 was quite low. He has had a crushing defeat in the Lok Sabha at the hands of the BJP, and Amit Shah was expanding the party into new territories like a conqueror. Yes, Nitish Kumar did tie-up with Lalu Yadav, but the critics said the alliance won’t last. The BJP was banking on their fighting over seat-sharing and other matters, and the alliance would break up even before the election. Kishor made sure that doesn’t happen. He made himself the common channel of communication between the two leaders to ensure there is no disharmony. (Fun fact: Kishor was against the Nitish-Lalu alliance. He insisted he could make Nitish win on his own but Nitish didn’t have the risk appetite for that.)
When the patient doesn’t take the medicine
While the critics say the political consultant chosen by winners gets no credit for the victories, the consultant gets all the blame for the losses. Hence, they say that Kishor could not make the Congress party improve its prospects in Uttar Pradesh in 2017.
In UP in 2016, Kishor achieved the Herculean task of making Rahul Gandhi travel the state for a consistent campaign on farmers’ issues without a single day’s holiday. But that was step one — or just the first “module” as these consultant types say. There were many other things lined-up non-stop to build momentum. The key was to declare Priyanka Gandhi as the chief ministerial candidate. The Congress party has agreed to all these proposals, and, as only the Congress can do, went back on them. All the plans were laid to waste.
It was a case of the patient not taking the medicine for the full course and then blaming the doctor.
Kishor’s mistake was that he didn’t part ways with the Congress there and then. The critics do have a point about what came thereafter: he became overconfident he could make an SP-Congress alliance win the state.
Malice and misunderstanding
Some of the dismissal of Kishor comes from malice: the durbaris around top politicians don’t want to lose their jobs to an American-style consultant. This was certainly the case with Congress.
Kishor is India’s first western-style political consultant. And the first man through the door often gets shot. There are others, but the political system doesn’t want them to be in the limelight, taking credit. The system wants to treat consultants as “vendors”. That is bound to change, sooner or later.
Some of the criticism of Kishor comes from a lack of understanding of this beast called modern political campaigning. What exactly is it that Prashant Kishor does? We’ll have to ask Mamata Banerjee, Jagan Mohan Reddy, Nitish Kumar, Captain Amarinder Singh, MK Stalin or Narendra Modi.
Wednesday 12 February 2020
Modi designed Kejriwal’s template for Delhi win years ago in Gujarat
The amazing thing about AAP is not that it fell back on conventional wisdom, but how quickly and eagerly it embraced the rules that it set out to change writes YOGENDRA YADAV in The Print
Cause for relief
This defeat of the BJP carries a bigger message. The BJP’s election campaign in Delhi was a new low in India’s electoral history. From national leaders to local minions, this was a full-throttled communal polarisation. Short of officially calling for Hindu-Muslim riots, the BJP leadership did everything that it could — branding its opponents as terrorists, anti-national, Pakistanis and whatnot — as the Election Commission made polite noises. Had this model succeeded, this would have become a national template — incite-hatred-win-elections — with ethnic, caste and regional variants. Its defeat may not put an end to the polarisation strategy. The BJP may well read the increase in its vote share as an indicator of the success of polarisation. And the party is bound to try this in West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh. But this result would surely sow seeds of doubt in the minds of those who argue for this. That is a cause for relief.
Yet, it would be misleading to compare this victory of the AAP with its path-breaking electoral debut in 2013 and 2015. At the time of inception, the AAP promised nothing short of a new model of governance, even if the contours of that model were yet to be worked out. Its ideology of swaraj promised a new vision for India, breaking free of ideological rigidities of the past. Above all, it promised a new kind of politics that would challenge the established rules of the game.
This second victory is not a realisation of that promise. Instead, it confirms that this new player has learned the rules of the game better than the older players, and proven that you don’t need a new model of governance or vision to succeed in India’s politics.
Far from inaugurating a new model of governance, the AAP has replicated, more successfully than others, what is by now a box standard template of re-election. The template was designed by Narendra Modi himself in his second and third assembly elections in Gujarat, replicated and refined by chief ministers like Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Raman Singh, Nitish Kumar, and Naveen Patnaik. This template of re-election for an incumbent government comprises three elements: assured delivery of select welfare measures that directly reach the people, high-decibel publicity of these measures and the leaders personality to amplify these policies, and a strong election machine to convert these into votes.
AAP’s template
Arvind Kejriwal used this template better than those who designed it. Free or cheap electricity did provide real relief to the poor and lower middle classes. Education may not have improved, but school infrastructure did. Mohalla clinics were mostly a start-up, but these did hold out a promise of accessible health services. These tangible gains were amplified through very simple and powerful communication, both official advertisements and party political publicity.
As a result, it became an article of faith that Delhi government was about education plus health. Everyone forgot about corruption, employment, pollution, transport and liquor. Arvind Kejriwal managed his image very deftly where it mattered most, the ordinary voters, without bothering much for the opinion-making classes. He too discovered that the public has a very short memory. All this was converted into votes through a powerful and well-oiled election machine, with some assistance from Prashant Kishor. This is not to take away from the brilliance and perseverance of the AAP leadership in executing and improvising on the template. It is just useful to remember that this is not a new model.
The same is true of the AAP’s political strategy. Far from rewriting the rules, the party has reaffirmed the existing rules. One, you cannot do politics without mobilising political entrepreneurs who are agnostic to political principles. Two, vision and principles are for the chattering classes, you don’t need to bother about these much. Three, a political party is all about winning elections, which is a necessary and sufficient test of political success. Four, a political party cannot work without a ‘high command’ that follows a single leader. The amazing thing about the AAP is not that it fell back on this conventional wisdom, but how quickly and eagerly it embraced the rules that it set out to change.
Many of these learnings paid off in the 2020 Delhi election. It could award ticket to every winnable candidate without any moral or ideological hindrance. The ideological flexibility allowed the AAP to quickly adjust to the Right-ward shift of the political spectrum. From welcoming the dilution of Article 370 and abolition of the state of Jammu and Kashmir to welcoming the Supreme Court verdict on Ayodhya, the party quickly shifted to the middle-Right. It managed, brilliantly, to remain ambiguous on the CAA and Shaheen Bagh through its campaign. Finally, it could limit the contest to the local issues of Delhi and paint itself as the only alternative at that level.
And this is the real irony: the party that was formed to break the tyranny of TINA (there is no alternative) won because there was no alternative to it.
So, the question is not whether these strategies work in elections. The AAP has shown that they do. The question we need to ask now is whether these can help us fight the larger battle to reclaim the republic.
Aam Aadmi Party supporters celebrate AAP's win in the capital
History repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce. This is one of the oft-quoted statements from Karl Marx, which alerts us that the re-occurrence of an event carries very different meanings in history. The Aam Adami Party’s repetition of its grand victory in the 2015 Delhi election is neither a tragedy nor a farce. In many ways, it does more to alter the equations of national politics. But it is no longer the victory that could change the established models of governance or the ways of Indian politics.
Judging by the craft of electoral battlefield, this is undoubtedly a memorable victory, bigger than the previous one. Coming at the end of a full term marred by a hostile central government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, an electoral victory is rare and should call for compliments. Repeating the unmatched scale of victory — nearly 54 per cent votes and about 90 per cent seats — in the wake of a washout in the 2019 Lok Sabha election, a central government determined to deny the AAP another term, one of the most aggressive and vicious campaigns by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and a diffident Election Commission makes it even more historic.
Add to it the special sociology of voting. India Today’s exit poll that provides social break-up of votes confirms that the AAP actually consolidated its vote share among women and poor voters. It seems that the AAP lost a 4-5 per cent votes to the BJP but made up for it from the gains it made from the Congress. In terms of education and class, the correlation is straightforward: the poorer and less educated the voter, the greater the AAP’s lead over the BJP. That suggests an enduring alignment of voters that is here to stay. Arvind Kejriwal must be complimented for holding his nerves during this campaign and guiding his team to this success.
While the AAP’s victory in 2015 was a one-off exception that did not alter the national equations, the 2020 election result brings good news for the entire country. Since 2018, Delhi is now the ninth successive assembly election (Karnataka, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Haryana, Maharashtra, Jharkhand and Delhi) where the BJP failed to win, despite being a serious contender (excluding Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, and Mizoram where it was not). This may not be an indicator of a decline and eventual fall of Narendra Modi from national centre stage. Nation-wide opinion polls attest to the continuing popularity of Modi. Opinion polls in the run-up to the Delhi election had shown that most AAP voters prefer Modi as the national leader and BJP as the party of their choice for Lok Sabha. Yet, another defeat in state assembly elections would puncture the narrative of BJP’s rising tide. It would also mean stronger federal resistance to the Centre’s attempts to ride roughshod over states.
History repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce. This is one of the oft-quoted statements from Karl Marx, which alerts us that the re-occurrence of an event carries very different meanings in history. The Aam Adami Party’s repetition of its grand victory in the 2015 Delhi election is neither a tragedy nor a farce. In many ways, it does more to alter the equations of national politics. But it is no longer the victory that could change the established models of governance or the ways of Indian politics.
Judging by the craft of electoral battlefield, this is undoubtedly a memorable victory, bigger than the previous one. Coming at the end of a full term marred by a hostile central government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, an electoral victory is rare and should call for compliments. Repeating the unmatched scale of victory — nearly 54 per cent votes and about 90 per cent seats — in the wake of a washout in the 2019 Lok Sabha election, a central government determined to deny the AAP another term, one of the most aggressive and vicious campaigns by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and a diffident Election Commission makes it even more historic.
Add to it the special sociology of voting. India Today’s exit poll that provides social break-up of votes confirms that the AAP actually consolidated its vote share among women and poor voters. It seems that the AAP lost a 4-5 per cent votes to the BJP but made up for it from the gains it made from the Congress. In terms of education and class, the correlation is straightforward: the poorer and less educated the voter, the greater the AAP’s lead over the BJP. That suggests an enduring alignment of voters that is here to stay. Arvind Kejriwal must be complimented for holding his nerves during this campaign and guiding his team to this success.
While the AAP’s victory in 2015 was a one-off exception that did not alter the national equations, the 2020 election result brings good news for the entire country. Since 2018, Delhi is now the ninth successive assembly election (Karnataka, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Haryana, Maharashtra, Jharkhand and Delhi) where the BJP failed to win, despite being a serious contender (excluding Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, and Mizoram where it was not). This may not be an indicator of a decline and eventual fall of Narendra Modi from national centre stage. Nation-wide opinion polls attest to the continuing popularity of Modi. Opinion polls in the run-up to the Delhi election had shown that most AAP voters prefer Modi as the national leader and BJP as the party of their choice for Lok Sabha. Yet, another defeat in state assembly elections would puncture the narrative of BJP’s rising tide. It would also mean stronger federal resistance to the Centre’s attempts to ride roughshod over states.
Cause for relief
This defeat of the BJP carries a bigger message. The BJP’s election campaign in Delhi was a new low in India’s electoral history. From national leaders to local minions, this was a full-throttled communal polarisation. Short of officially calling for Hindu-Muslim riots, the BJP leadership did everything that it could — branding its opponents as terrorists, anti-national, Pakistanis and whatnot — as the Election Commission made polite noises. Had this model succeeded, this would have become a national template — incite-hatred-win-elections — with ethnic, caste and regional variants. Its defeat may not put an end to the polarisation strategy. The BJP may well read the increase in its vote share as an indicator of the success of polarisation. And the party is bound to try this in West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh. But this result would surely sow seeds of doubt in the minds of those who argue for this. That is a cause for relief.
Yet, it would be misleading to compare this victory of the AAP with its path-breaking electoral debut in 2013 and 2015. At the time of inception, the AAP promised nothing short of a new model of governance, even if the contours of that model were yet to be worked out. Its ideology of swaraj promised a new vision for India, breaking free of ideological rigidities of the past. Above all, it promised a new kind of politics that would challenge the established rules of the game.
This second victory is not a realisation of that promise. Instead, it confirms that this new player has learned the rules of the game better than the older players, and proven that you don’t need a new model of governance or vision to succeed in India’s politics.
Far from inaugurating a new model of governance, the AAP has replicated, more successfully than others, what is by now a box standard template of re-election. The template was designed by Narendra Modi himself in his second and third assembly elections in Gujarat, replicated and refined by chief ministers like Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Raman Singh, Nitish Kumar, and Naveen Patnaik. This template of re-election for an incumbent government comprises three elements: assured delivery of select welfare measures that directly reach the people, high-decibel publicity of these measures and the leaders personality to amplify these policies, and a strong election machine to convert these into votes.
AAP’s template
Arvind Kejriwal used this template better than those who designed it. Free or cheap electricity did provide real relief to the poor and lower middle classes. Education may not have improved, but school infrastructure did. Mohalla clinics were mostly a start-up, but these did hold out a promise of accessible health services. These tangible gains were amplified through very simple and powerful communication, both official advertisements and party political publicity.
As a result, it became an article of faith that Delhi government was about education plus health. Everyone forgot about corruption, employment, pollution, transport and liquor. Arvind Kejriwal managed his image very deftly where it mattered most, the ordinary voters, without bothering much for the opinion-making classes. He too discovered that the public has a very short memory. All this was converted into votes through a powerful and well-oiled election machine, with some assistance from Prashant Kishor. This is not to take away from the brilliance and perseverance of the AAP leadership in executing and improvising on the template. It is just useful to remember that this is not a new model.
The same is true of the AAP’s political strategy. Far from rewriting the rules, the party has reaffirmed the existing rules. One, you cannot do politics without mobilising political entrepreneurs who are agnostic to political principles. Two, vision and principles are for the chattering classes, you don’t need to bother about these much. Three, a political party is all about winning elections, which is a necessary and sufficient test of political success. Four, a political party cannot work without a ‘high command’ that follows a single leader. The amazing thing about the AAP is not that it fell back on this conventional wisdom, but how quickly and eagerly it embraced the rules that it set out to change.
Many of these learnings paid off in the 2020 Delhi election. It could award ticket to every winnable candidate without any moral or ideological hindrance. The ideological flexibility allowed the AAP to quickly adjust to the Right-ward shift of the political spectrum. From welcoming the dilution of Article 370 and abolition of the state of Jammu and Kashmir to welcoming the Supreme Court verdict on Ayodhya, the party quickly shifted to the middle-Right. It managed, brilliantly, to remain ambiguous on the CAA and Shaheen Bagh through its campaign. Finally, it could limit the contest to the local issues of Delhi and paint itself as the only alternative at that level.
And this is the real irony: the party that was formed to break the tyranny of TINA (there is no alternative) won because there was no alternative to it.
So, the question is not whether these strategies work in elections. The AAP has shown that they do. The question we need to ask now is whether these can help us fight the larger battle to reclaim the republic.
Tuesday 11 February 2020
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