“WHAT WILL happen to us Hindus when Muslims take over?” These words, uttered by a voter from Rohtas Nagar, one of the eight constituencies which voted for the BJP this Delhi Assembly election tells us that perhaps the divisiveness of the election campaign has had some victims.
While election campaigns have always been colourful, this time it went a step further with the BJP’s relentless communal campaigns that led to multiple bans on its leaders by the Election Commission.
Not once but twice, West Delhi MP Parvesh Verma was banned within just a week of his election rally appearances. His speech calling the Shaheen Bagh protestors rapists and murderers had earned him a ban from campaigning for four days. Soon after, on February 5, he was banned again for calling the Chief Minister, Arvind Kejriwal a “terrorist”.
Targeting Shaheen Bagh again, Minister of State for Finance Anurag Thakur chanted “Desh ke gaddaron ko goli maaro saalon ko”, at BJP’s rally in Rithala. The EC slapped a 72-hour campaign ban on him for the same.
On February 5, Home Minister Amit Shah in a rally in Kondli said that the Assembly poll was “between two ideologies”. He said it was the AAP and the Congress which were opposed to the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), the Ram Mandir, and the abrogation of Article 370.
Shaheen Bagh, which the BJP brought up time and again in their campaign, has become the face of resistance and protest against the government’s CAA. The Acts’ critics believe, the CAA is anti-Muslim and will pave the way for a nationwide National Register of Citizens (NRC) which deprives Muslims of citizenship if they don’t have their papers.
So, while many of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) supporters call this win of 62 seats a major feat, and one of politics of development having trumped politics of hate, people like Vijender Kumar who believed Hindus were in danger, may have his fears stemming from the relentless campaigns.
Kumar, a shopkeeper selling paintings and pictures in Rohtas Nagar’s main market; a constituency with a total of 2,10,832 voters — goes on about his fear as we ask him why he voted for the BJP.
“First Muslims ruled over us” Kumar says, invoking history which saw Muslim dynasties from the 12th century till the 19th century in the Indian subcontinent, a context which the BJP has many a times brought up. “If we are Hindus and our parent’s grandparents have all lived here, we are from here, where will we go?” he adds.
This is also a caution which very recently has been thrown by Karnataka BJP MP Tejasvi Surya in the Lok Sabha, no less. He implored the “majority” to remain vigilant “or else Mughal rule will return to the country”. This statement was made in reference to Shaheen Bagh.
So, we further prodded Kumar, asking when was it that he decided to vote for the BJP and its candidate Jitender Mahajan. The 67-year-old, though ,kept his response to a brief “There should be a change”. But BJP is not without its faults, he added. He points to what the winning party the AAP had accused the BJP off: “lacking a CM face.”
He also thought BJP leaders don’t mingle with the public, “All leaders have tantrums. Those leaders who can stay with people, say Ram Ram, Walaikum Assalam, Sat Sri Akaal, only that person will be successful. They will think yes, he is our person.”
He then complains that unemployment and price rise are of big concern. When we ask him who is responsible for this he answers “If one man marries three to four wives and has 40 children then of course this would happen”. When we ask how that could be a factor, he does not give any reasoning, instead adds that there are many more reasons, “I could write a book on it.”
Another man who invoked this Hindu-Muslim divide and directly pointed to this being the major reason for the votes garnered in his constituency is Himanshu Jain.
A young man who has been running a shop of artificial jewellery and other accessories, Jain believes this is the same reason Muslim majority areas voted for the AAP.
“The Hindu-Muslim divide happened especially because of CAA. You see that’s why a lot of differences have arisen, (and) that’s why most Muslims have voted for the AAP and Hindu areas for the BJP.”
Jain, who has been running the shop in Rohtas Nagar for the past two years says that shopkeepers had decided to back the now elected MLA, Jitender Mahajan, “as he has a business of his own, with a showroom of readymade clothes”.
Their motive to dethrone AAP’s Sarita Singh, who had won in 2015 by a margin of 7,874 votes, were also cemented for Jain because according to him the MLA “did no work. Even when she had come for campaigning, she didn’t enter this area”.
Instead he compared that to the BJPs campaign which according to him, had put in a lot of money for the rallies which happened with “a lot of fanfare”.
Mahajan who lost in 2015, won this time around with one of the bigger margin wins for the saffron party, with 13,241 more votes than AAP’s Singh.
DIVISION WORKED
The constituency with the largest vote share margin that the BJP received was in Ghonda, which falls under the North East parliamentary constituency. The constituency has a total of 2,22,280 electors.
Here Ajay Mahawar of the BJP won with a margin of 28,370 beating Shri Dutt Sharma of the AAP. Sharma had won in 2015 to BJPs Sahab Singh Chauhan by a margin of 8,093 votes.
We met voters of the area to understand why they voted for the BJP. A few locals from the area told us that BJP workers had gone around campaigning to press the lotus button ‘as that would prove how many people are for Pakistan and how many are for Hindustan’.
This was perhaps a direct causative effect of BJP’s Model Town candidate, Kapil Mishra who in his tweet had said, “India vs Pakistan. India and Pakistan will compete on the streets of Delhi on February 8.” While the EC banned him for 48 hours from campaigning, Mishra also lost from Model Town.
There were also a few we met who had voted for the AAP. One of those AAP voters is Sarfaraz Khan, who owns a shop in Ghonda, selling e-rickshaws. In the corner of one of them we found saffron jackets with faces of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, BJP Delhi chief Manoj Tiwari, East Delhi MP Gautam Gambhir, and (late) former finance minister Arun Jaitley.
While Khan himself doesn’t supply these jackets his friend, Zaidi, who has a shop next to his does.
Khan, a resident of Ghonda for the past 25 years, told us he was surprised to see the BJP win from his constituency. “The BJP’s Hindu-Muslim divide that they heavily campaigned about has managed to work in this constituency. From the time BJP has come to power Muslims are distressed”, he further accuses that he believes a lot of votes had been bought.
“With the sealing drive by the BJP, I know a lot of people voted for the AAP,” says Khan, going on to talk about the works done by AAP, and how he benefitted from them.
“I have four daughters who go to school. The education provided has vastly improved, and the travel that used to cost me Rs 50 each, is now being saved due to free bus service.
Even with free electricity, there is a lot of savings,” adds Khan.
But what about those from Ghonda who voted for the BJP. One we met is Zaidi, who is the purveyor of the saffron jackets which first caught our attention. Supplying to wholesalers in Gandhi Nagar, he says he gets bulk orders of,2-3 lakh pieces, each jacket costing Rs 500.
Zaidi says he has been a BJP voter since long past and does not understand the big deal about its campaign which had been quite hateful in nature. “This all happens during elections”, he quipped, scrunching up his face to show just how unimportant the hate speech was to him.
“I have a group of a few hundred who voted for the BJP, even my family members did.”
When asked why people voted for the BJP he instead told us about why people voted for the AAP. “They have voted for AAP for the good work in education. I didn’t vote for them because BJP looks at other factors. It wants the progress of the country. They think big. Modi’s mind is for the progress of the country, and he can make it America if he wants, but people are unable to understand.”
When we ask about what progress has taken place under the BJP-led central government he point towards the abrogation of Article 370, “which is the number one point”. He finds it good because “A person from here can go and start a business in Kashmir, can open factories, which wasn’t allowed before. I intend on starting a business”.
And the fact that the AAP won in the name of “vikas” or development, is something he cannot understand. “People have voted in the name of vikas they say, but vikas will automatically happen, it’s not an important topic”.
He does agree though that ‘the Hindu-Muslim topic’ was a big factor in these elections. “It was good, the abrogation of Article 370, a resolution for Babri Masjid and the triple talaq case being resolved in court, are all good, so people voted”.
“So, what if they got only eight seats out of 70. They will get all one day”. His advice for making this a reality is offering a pension of Rs 15,000 every month.Then “they (the BJP) would never lose an election”.
Another voter from Ghonda we meet is Bharat. He too voted for the BJP but instead of naming any tactics of the BJP working on him, what worked was that the AAP “did nothing here”. Adding to this position he calls their work to improve roads in his area as unsuccessful, “First they make the roads and then they remember that a sewage pipe needs to be put, or changed and then they’ll open it up again.”
BJP AND THEIR MARGINS
He moves on to the free electricity provision, which he says has been possible due to “Sheila Dikshit (former CM of Delhi) who had privatised electricity…what AAP has done is make it free that too six months before elections”. Then it was the pollution crisis that the capital city has been facing especially harder since the winter of 2016, which the AAP have not been able to tackle.
He also talks about the free bus service to women, while money should have instead been utilised to buy new buses.
In fact, “the freebies” have become a point of contention not just between the opposing parties but even those who favour the BJP. People have been pointing fingers at Delhi voters, saying they voted for AAP because they like freebies, and perhaps because of this Sujata, an AAP voter from Ghonda that we meet, repeatedly tells us that she didn’t vote for the free electricity, or the buses
but “only for the future of my children”.
We meet her while her business partner, Shashi Gupta, fries bread pakoras in their less than a year-old shop. Both admit to being Congress supporters who have now switched over.
Sujata says she voted for AAP only because they have done “so good for education” and she had personally benefitted from this as her three children study in government schools.
Gupta, on the other hand, voted for the BJP. She is one of those who have migrated to the BJP from the Congress. “I used to always vote for them but now with nothing happening I have voted for BJP”. While Sujata is of the belief that with a different leader at the helm the party would have a chance in electoral politics. “Sheila Dikshit did a lot of work. The road here was built by her, even buses started plying, but now they have stopped it”.
Her friend adds with a disappointed smile that they are left with no choice but to switch. In fact, from the total vote share that the BJP garnered and the loss of Congress’, along with the almost static vote share for the AAP, what we can understand is that some Congress voters have moved over to the BJP.
For the Congress, it has been a steady decline in Delhi, which started in 2013 Assembly polls. Back then they had garnered a total of 24.55% votes, in 2015 it declined drastically to just 9.7%. If it thought it couldn’t do any worse it was wrong, with the grand old party managing just 4.2% votes this year.
WIN SOME LOSE SOME
While the AAP lost five more seats than last time, it managed to win Mustafabad, a constituency which it had in 2015 lost to the BJP.
Mustafabad, with a total of 2,62,642 electors, is one of the three constituencies that the BJP won in the last assembly elections. Haji Yunus defeated the now-former MLA of the BJP, Jagdish Pradhan with a huge margin of 20,704 votes. In 2015, Jagdish had a vote count of 58,388 and was ahead of the AAP with 8,597 votes. Congress, however, has a very dismal performance of only 5,363 votes, as compared to the 52,357 votes it had garnered in 2015.
When Patriot had last visited Mustafabad, during the Lok Sabha elections, many Muslims had admitted that in the previous Assembly elections their votes had been divided which saw the BJP win. This time Congress’ dull results show that Muslims were able to consolidate their votes to one party.
And when we met Sharibal from this constituency, she says that AAP was an obvious choice this time. AAP’s Yunus’ victory with 98,850 votes, means the total vote percentage was 53.2%.
So, what gave AAP the edge over others? It was their work that spoke to the people.
“From electricity, water, to government dispensaries providing us with better treatments, what else could a common man ask for,” asks Sharibal. “For so many years what they couldn’t do, Kejriwal has done that in the field of education in these past years.” She, however, does add that the road and transport system in the city needs to be worked upon.
“People in my constituency had voted for Congress and BJP before, but then we did not see any work done by Kejriwal. This election we had to vote for the development that we have seen,” adds her neighbor.
While stating that they voted on the basis of the development in their area they also add that the reason they steered clear from the BJP was because of their divisive campaign, added with the implications of the CAA and the NRC. Sharibal points out to another resident of her constituency and said that this time all the Muslim women in her area made a conscious and collective choice to vote for AAP.
“We have always been living peacefully for so many years. So many different religions have been staying together and that is what makes our Hindustan. They don’t even respect Mahatma Gandhi. And now, there are so many unemployed people, people who cannot even feed themselves, how do they expect them to show their birth certificates?” Sharibal questions.
But a big victory was seen of the anti-CAA protests with the votes garnered by Okhla’s AAP MLA, Amanatullah Khan, who was blamed by the BJP as having “begun” the women-led Shaheen Bagh movement.
Khan won by over 70,000 votes beating BJPs Braham Singh.
Gains were actually seen for AAP in all Muslim-dominated constituencies which were once Congress bastions. In Ballimaran, AAPs Imran Hussain defeated Lata Sodhi of BJP by 36,172 votes.
Then in Matia Mahal, five-term MLA Shoaib Iqbal, who is also a former Congress MLA won for the AAP, defeating BJPs Ravinder Gupta by a margin of 50,241. Mirza Javed Ali of the Congress managed to garner only 3,403 and came a distant third.
And in Seelampur, which saw protests turn violent, AAP won with a new MLA candidate Abdul Rehman securing a margin of 36,920 over Kaushal Kumar Mishra of the BJP.
But AAP’s win is not just because of Muslim votes as some may believe. Even in the celebrations at AAP’s office in Delhi on counting day, February 11, one could see people of diverse backgrounds, young and old joining in the revelry.
In fact, looking at the Census 2011 report makes things clearer. According to that, Hindus accounted for 80.21 % (8,851,355) while Muslims accounted for 12.78 % (1,410,041). AAP managed to win 53.6% of the votes while the BJP secured 38.5% of the votes, which shows that it wasn’t just the Muslims who voted for the AAP.
AAP WIN BY A THIN MARGIN
While the AAP managed a big win again, compared to its performance in 2015 a few of its MLAs have lost votes. Here we list out all those who secured a vote margin of less than 3,500:
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