The shockingly stunning victory of the two-year-old Aam Admi Party (AAP) in the assembly election in the national capital this week is expected to impact the national politics in a significant manner as it is bound to trigger the process of political realignment across the country.
Analysis
The shockingly stunning victory of the two-year-old Aam Admi Party (AAP) in the assembly election in the national capital this week is expected to impact the national politics in a significant manner as it is bound to trigger the process of political realignment across the country.
Of the 13.3 million electorate of Delhi, 67.08 per cent cast their votes on February 7 after a bitter, glamorous, high decibel and expensive campaigning by political parties.
Though there were three main parties in the electoral fray, about 70 parties had fielded their candidates. When votes were counted on February 10, the AAP registered a record win, securing 67 seats in the 70-member legislative assembly. The other three seats went to the BJP. In fact, the BJP had won all the seven Lok Sabha seats in the national capital only a couple of months ago in the 2014 parliamentary polls.
The Congress party, which till the last assembly elections in 2013 had ruled Delhi for 15 years, failed to win a single seat as its vote share shrunk to 9.7 per cent from about 25 per cent that it had received in the last contest. In 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the Congress vote share had stood around 15 per cent.
The BJP had a vote share of 46 per cent in the general election and 33 per cent in 2013 assembly elections. Though it lost only one per cent vote share from the last assembly contest, it could win only three seats now.
The AAP, which had secured 29 per cent vote share in 2013 and had increased it to 33 per cent in the Lok Sabha elections, increased its share of popular votes to 54 per cent now. This increase resulted in its seats going up from 28 in the last elections to 67 – a jump of 39seats.
Greater significance
Though technically a loss or a win here should not have counted much, Delhi being the capital of the country and by virtue of the presence of diplomatic missions and international media, the electoral contest assumed critical significance.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who had emerged the main face of his party after ensuring absolute majority in the general elections in May 2014 and had come to acquire a hallow of invincibility, decided to campaign for the party. He addressed four rallies towards the end of the three-week campaigning. He sought votes as the endorsement of good works of his government. The party also issued full front page ads in newspapers with the PM figuring on top. The Prime Minister was the dominant theme and figured prominently in TV ads and Radio jingles.
Earlier, the BJP had won assembly elections in Maharashtra, Haryana, Jharkhand and J&K, with Modi being the central figure and the leading theme. And the credit of these victories were given to the PM.
So, when the BJP lost the Delhi elections very badly, the Prime Minister’s prestige was surely affected, though the party, when it became clear it is going to lose, loudly claimed that results of the Delhi election were not going to be a referendum on the performance of the nine months of the BJP-led NDA government.
It’s to Bihar, now
The Delhi results, having exploded the myth of the electoral invincibility of the BJP along with dwindling appeal of the Prime Minister, are going to impact the national politics in coming months. After its victory,the AAP is expected to explore ways to expand its political base across other states, including Bihar, where assembly elections will be due in October-November.
Bihar elections are very critical for the BJP as well as the opposition. A victory for the BJP there would go a long way in re-establishing the image of the Prime Minister, which got a stunning beating in the national capital. But, a defeat there may prove to be the beginning of his political undoing. Therefore the party under the control of Modi’s close confidante and follower Amit Shah would not leave anything to chance and would try every trick up its arm to secure a victory. The BJP was part of the ruling coalition with the JD (U) till June 2013 and its leader Sushil Kumar Modi was the deputy Chief Minister while the government was led by JD-U leader Nitish Kumar. Kumar severed links with the BJP after it had decided to project the then Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi as its prime ministerial candidate. The JD (U) and the BJP had been alliance partners for over 16 years in the NDA.
In the previous Lok Sabha elections, the JD (U) could win only two seats while the BJP had won 22 seats and its NDA partners nine seats. Nitish Kumar, owning responsibility for the dismal performance of his party, stepped down from the chief ministerial chair and named a party colleague and a minister in his cabinet Jitan Ram Manjhi, who is a Dalit leader, to replace him as the next chief minister of a caste-ridden state where caste calculation play decisive role in the outcome of the election results.
Nitish Kumar had hoped that Manjhi would remain loyal to him but within few months of his elevation to the chair of the chief executive of the state, he began to turn his back towards his mentor.
The BJP, which was hoping to win the assembly elections, stoked Manjhi’s ambitions hoping that there would be a split in the JD (U) ranks which would benefit it in the assembly elections as Manjhi’s caste votes would add to its vote base and the party would be able to defeat the emerging alliance of the JD (U), the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) of former state chief minister Lalu Prasad, the Congress and the Left parties.
The Prime Minister had a meeting with Manjhi in Delhi on Sunday, February 8 and reportedly promised all support but results of the Delhi election on February 10 upset the calculations as the BJP was no more a winning horse.
The Bihar Chief Minister has been asked to prove the majority of his government on the floor of the house on February 20 by Governor Keshari Nath Triptahi. Irrespective of the final result of the majority test of the Manjhi government, politics in Bihar is undergoing a change and coming months would witness many ups and downs. Assembly election outcome in Bihar would indicate the direction of national politics as the contest would primarily be between the BJP and rest of the so understood "secular" parties.
Similar alignments and realignment of political forces is expected in other states, boosted by the AAP’s victory in Delhi.
(The writer is a Senior Fellow at Observer Research Foundation, Delhi)
Maldives: China denies military base, sends out new signals to India?
N Sathiya Moorthy
In possibly the first instance of the kind, China has officially denied speculation that it was setting up military bases in the Indian Ocean neighbourhood to target India. That the Chinese denial, issued by the nation’s Embassy in Male, related to Maldives, and came on the eve of US President Barack Obama’s participation in India’s Republic Day celebrations as the chief guest, should not go unnoticed.
"It’s completely false," a Chinese Embassy statement said, after Opposition Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) leader and former President Mohammed Nasheed had publicly alleged that the Government of President Abdulla Yameen had facilitated the setting up of a Chinese military base in Laamu Atoll. "It is a common knowledge that China pursues a national defence policy that is defensive in nature," the statement said. "China does not maintain any military in any foreign country."
Referring to the once much-talked-about ’Panchsheel’ principles involving India and recalled from time-to-time, the statement said, "China always upholds the five principles of peaceful coexistence in its foreign relations, and believes in peace, development, and win-win cooperation." The term has got later-day mention in bilateral discussions and statements, but with not much to show by way of tangles on the ground. The statement thus said, "This is also the foundation for China-Maldives relations, which are not only mutually beneficial but also transparent to the outside world."
Not a new charge
Only days before President Obama’s visit, Nasheed told the Maldivian media that the Yameen administration was to hand over Laamu Atoll to China for a military base on a 99-year lease, in exchange for $ 2 billion. Allotting stand-alone islands and atolls to foreign investors for tourism promotion in exchange for a combination of cash-down payment and long-term lease is not new to a succession of cash-strapped Maldivian authorities, but allotting an island to a third-nation, that too China and for military purposes, would have agitated the larger Indian neighbour.
The lid has since been put on the controversy after the Chinese statement. The MDP itself seemed to climb down on their earlier statement without saying it in so many words – or, so it would seem. The very day the Chinese denial appeared, President Nasheed too tweeted: "It is encouraging to see the Chinese Government reconsidering their strategic plans in the Indian Ocean".
SEZ proposal
The first time rumours about a Chinese submarine base in Maldives surfaced during the last years of erstwhile President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom’s 30-year rule, and at the height of the pro-democracy protests in the country. Though the strategic community in India was naturally agitated for long, subsequent efforts showed that the speculation/rumour was unsubstantiated.
Indian naval veterans also clarified that the Maldivian coral reefs were not the best of berthing places for submarines. They were also unsure if the viscosity of the Indian Ocean waters in those parts would be conducive to send out and receive sonar signals, which is essential during submarine operations and movements.
It is however unclear as yet if the Chinese would be involved in any non-military project in Laamu Atoll, locally known as Haddhunmathi and the largest atoll in the country. In the post-democratisation years, speculation of the kind was doing the rounds for a while that Chinese Government corporations would be involved in developing resorts and link roads in Laamu Atoll. Some other atoll too got mentioned in context.
Now, China is funding and building the Laamu Atoll Link Road. According to local media reports, inaugurating the work on the project in December 2014, President Yameen said that the Government had identified the area as a potential special economic zone (SEZ). The SEZs are a new pet theme of his leadership, to promote foreign investments, economic development and employment-creation, particularly for the locals, across the country.
A year earlier, the Government had announced that Saudi investment was being obtained for developing Laamu Atoll. That however was before the SEZ scheme was visualised and took off. Post-SEZ law, it is still not unlikely that a Chinese company may be among the bidders for the SEZ on Laamu Atoll – and may have it allotted too. It is unclear what kind of industry, if any, the SEZ project for the atoll could visualise, or if a tourist resort (possibly serving the high number of Chinese tourists near-exclusively) is also being thought of.
China has since followed up on the Maldives-related denial with a statement by visiting Assistant Foreign Minister Liu Jianchao in Colombo that they do not intend playing Sri Lanka against India. However, Liu’s reiteration of the known Chinese position on the berthing two of their submarines in Sri Lankan ports last year was focussed only on anti-piracy operations and not testing the waters against India, was as unconvincing as ever.
US presence denied
The Chinese denial came exactly a year after the US had denied any intention for military presence in Maldives. "The US has not and is not considering a permanent military presence in Maldives. We continue to share a close bilateral defence relationship on areas of mutual interest," Pentagon spokesperson Lt-Col Jeffery Pool as telling the Press Trust of India (PTI), the premier Indian news agency, in January 2014, almost to the date a year ahead of the Chinese denial now.
The US comments followed after President Yameen’s statement in Sri Lanka that he had decided not to go ahead with a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) with the US during his Colombo visit at the time. "There have been discussions before? we are not going to pursue it," Yameen was quoted as telling media in Colombo. He was obviously referring the predecessor Government of President Mohammed Waheed Hassan Manik.
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