The cloud of any last minute apprehension about losing the ground by the Aam Aadmi Party, as propagated by the rival camp, has settled down. Aap has torn through the smoke of a mind game and the voters of Delhi decided to retain the ones who kept delivery above rhetoric.
One can easily guess the gloom looming over the BJP head quarter and the Congress doesn’t require even a mention in the circumstances.
The misinterpreted perception created out of the Shaheen Bagh protest seems to have backfired for the BJP that the latter tried till the last moment of the campaign, to ride on the crest of a politics of divide.
Voters of Delhi have straight-away dismissed arrogance as a tool to use at a time when basic things remain paramount at the ground level. Now the BJP should be in no illusion about the trouble it is in.
Straight six states out of the saffron grip is something that the home minister Amit Shah, whose campaign style, perhaps, came under fire not merely for anointing the old baton of CAA and others but, the myriad basic issues that his party appeared ideologically not aligned with, since last few months.
It was Amit Shah who spearheaded the Delhi campaign and most often chose to ignore the arguments of reason raised by his opponent.
There is nothing new that, in politics leaders weaponize the spectacles of political hypocrisy to out-smart the opponents but, it was wrong to have taken the latter with less seriousness. That Kejriwal was careful about, of course.
For the AAP, which romps home to make Arvind Kejriwal the chief minister for the third time(technically), there are lessons that Kejriwal cannot ignore. He was lucky to have sailed smooth through the turmoil that stemmed from Shaheen Bagh yet, window-dressing in few deliveries has helped him a lot.
Emerging from no-where, a former IITian, and elbowing in into politics through a movement, weathering the pitfalls in between, one cannot grudge Kejriwal his pride to have reigned over the most powerful state in the country and now for the third consecutive time.
Now it is time, regardless of the resounding victory, Kejriwal has to learn to walk with his head on the shoulders.
When he came to politics as the CM, he demonstrated austerity as his main focus but subsequently slipped. From a Wagon R car to a SUV and from a three room house to an eight room posh official bunglow. Perks and salaries of Delhi legislators shot up as never before.
It reminds of a kind of hypocrisy as a fatal flaw by his own earlier principles. Then surely he has flawed.
Almost every politician is a hypocrite and since Kejriwal’s way of living is dependent on politics, he has little to flaunt as a politician with a difference that he had espoused in 2014.