The best result in Delhi elections?

The best outcome — from the national interest perspective — of the Delhi elections being held today would be for the BJP to squeak in with a bare (one or two seat) majority and have Arvind Kejriwal for the next five years hound the ruling party at every turn, holding the feet of the Kiran Bedi dispensation directed by the Narendra Modi- Amit Shah duo to the fire. It will prevent the BJP govt in Delhi, and also at the centre, from going off the deep end because the rulers will be fearful that any false steps will fuel the Kejriwal-AAM Party engine, win it credibility on the national stage. Indeed, it may be ideal for AAM party to prepare itself for power by apprenticing itself as a dogged opposition. It will also spare Delhi the spectacle and the frustrating experience of Kejriwal & Co — highly motivated amateurs, unprepared and untutored in running the administrative apparatus of state, stumbling around trying to get things right. Better they learn from BJP’s mistakes than make these themselves if let loose prematurely on the Delhi scene (as happened the first time around).

About Bharat Karnad

Senior Fellow in National Security Studies at the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi, he was Member of the (1st) National Security Advisory Board and the Nuclear Doctrine-drafting Group, and author, among other books of, 'Nuclear Weapons and Indian Security: The Realist Foundations of Strategy', 'India's Nuclear Policy' and most recently, 'Why India is Not a Great Power (Yet)'. Educated at the University of California (undergrad and grad), he was Visiting Scholar at Princeton University, University of Pennsylvania, the Shanghai Institutes of International Studies, and Henry L. Stimson Center, Washington, DC.

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3 Responses to The best result in Delhi elections?

Gururaj says:

February 9, 2015 at 1:19 pm

Absolutely Sir!!! Agreed exit polls are predicting a clear majority for AAP, however will not be surprised if actual results turn out in somewhat a similar fashion as you have wished for.
The fact of the matter is that populist measures promised by AAP such as free water, electricity, wi fi etc are not financially viable. If it finds the going difficult, the fear is that AAP may yet again adopt dharna tactics and cripple the capital!!
10th is being awaited eagerly. Any which way you look at it, it will be a watershed moment.

~!@#$%^&*()_+ says:

February 23, 2015 at 6:25 pm

Now that the Delhi Assembly with 67 AAP MLAs are in and the circus has started on the Land Acquisition Bill, how do you think your view has or should be changing?

Does Kejri still look like the knight in shining armour, to you?

- Bharat Karnad says:
  
  February 24, 2015 at 10:14 pm
  
  @mongrelji — the main thrust of my article is that the AAP success in Delhi is a wake-up call that PM Modi and the BJP Govt better heed. Modi by his record of rocketing rise and rhetoric raised huge expectations, which required really radical measures to address. It is the absence of these that has led to the public’s disillusionment with Modi. The Cong regime left behind a corrupt and broken Delhi it is true, but it was the Modi-directed Lt Governor Jung’s dispensation that ran the city state for the last 6 months, and Kejriwal was expressly running against this record of BJP’s as well. The larger point is that for the right-liberal/conservatives Modi appeared as a shining star and this analyst so greeted him as far back as 2011 — look up articles in this blog. That star has now dimmed. But as I said, he still has time to make up lost ground. The question is does he have the will to get back on the right track?