Delhi proves a crowded battleground for India’s new politics

December 1, 2013 5:41 am

Delhi proves a crowded battleground for India’s new politics

By Victor Mallet in New Delhi

Shazia Ilmi is no ordinary woman – the glamorous former television anchor is both wealthy and famous in India – but she is at the forefront of a struggle by the upstart Aam Aadmi (Ordinary People) party to challenge the duopoly that has dominated the politics of Delhi and the nation for decades.“We’ve reached a tipping point in our lives in India where something needed to be done other than just criticising the government,” says Ms Ilmi, who is sporting the AAP’s trademark white cap bearing the slogan “I’m an ordinary person” in Hindi. “There were a lot of protests, but to no avail.”

She is contesting the R.K. Puram constituency in Delhi – one of 70 seats in the teeming National Capital Territory of 17m inhabitants – in the state election on Wednesday.

Arvind Kejriwal, the former tax officer who leads the one-year-old party, and supporters such as Ms Ilmi hope to seize seats from Congress, which controls both Delhi and the national government, and from the Bharatiya Janata party, the Hindu nationalist opposition.

What happens in Delhi, and in four other state elections, will provide clues about the mood in India ahead of next year’s general election, the world’s largest exercise in representative democracy.

Violence against women is one hotly debated issue in the Delhi campaign. The rapists who killed a 23-year-old physiotherapy student in a notorious case last year were posing as bus operators when they picked her up with her male companion on the road outside what is now Ms Ilmi’s ramshackle campaign office. The men, four of whom have been sentenced to hang, also lived in the area.

The AAP’s popularity in much of Delhi, however, is based mainly on its single-minded campaign against corruption, which pervades everything from big defence and construction contracts to everyday dealings with petty bureaucrats.

Mr Kejriwal’s party depends largely on small donations from ordinary citizens, and Ms Ilmi describes how she tried to dissuade a fruit vendor on the street from donating the relatively large sum of Rs500 ($8). “I said, ‘It’s too much,’ I felt guilty, and he said, ‘Look, I have to give Rs500 [in protection money] to every policeman.’”

Narendra Modi, the national BJP leader, has also condemned Congress for corruption and incompetence in delivering services in the capital. “You have been ruling for the past 15 years but have not been able to provide even water to the residents,” he mockingly told Sheila Dikshit, incumbent chief minister, in a speech last week in support of Harsh Vardhan, the BJP’s candidate to replace her.

The veteran Ms Dikshit has a formidable record, having won three consecutive elections for Congress and been at the helm of one of the world’s largest and most unruly cities since 1998.

Congress and the BJP have to just give money and booze. Our work is so much harder

– Shazia Ilmi, AAP candidate

She dismisses her AAP challengers as members of an unstable party who talk endlessly about corruption but have no concrete plans to deal with it. But even she admits it is difficult to providing housing, schooling, transport, water, sanitation, clean air and electricity in the “centre of a great economic boom” where 500,000 migrants are added to the population every year.

“The issues are all basic,” she says in an interview at her office overlooking a backwater of the heavily polluted Yamuna River, while an air filter hums in the background to purge the air of the toxic dust that envelops the city in winter. “I think we just learn to cope, running to keep standing in the same place.”

Without the mass influx of people from the countryside, she adds, “perhaps our progress would be much more visible”. The city is extending its metro system and Ms Dikshit is now thinking of introducing double-decker road flyovers, trams and a monorail. “The sheer magnitude of the population moving around is mind-boggling.”

The predictions of opinion polls and political analysts for the Delhi election – one of five state polls for which results will be released on Friday – vary wildly, with some saying the AAP will triumph over India’s traditional parties and others forecasting that it will not win a single seat. Yet others believe the AAP will win enough seats to hold the balance of power in a future Delhi government.

The likes of Mr Kejriwal and Ms Ilmi have made their mark on the cynical, corruption-weary denizens of Delhi, and small groups of cheerful campaigners with their “ordinary people” hats are visible all over the capital.

But even they are not sure if they can persuade uneducated voters that the ballot is secret, that they will not be deprived of food subsidies if they vote AAP, and that it is worth voting for a new party with few resources.

“Congress and the BJP have to just give money and booze. Our work is so much harder,” says Ms Ilmi. But she says the party, which is contesting every seat in Delhi, already has a presence in half of India’s 28 states. “We want to make it a pan-India movement,” she says. “It’s just a beginning.”

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Indian politics: A family affair

Warriors of the Scindia clan once ruled much of north India, but after defeats at the hands of the British in the 19th century, their territory shrunk to become the princely state of Gwalior, now part of Madhya Pradesh in the heart of independent India,writes Henny Sender in Gwalior, India.

Today three members of the Scindia family are involved in state elections in Madhya Pradesh – where voting took place last week – and neighbouring Rajasthan where polls were open on Sunday, in a sign of the enduring influence of powerful dynasties in Indian politics. The results in all five state elections will be revealed on Sunday.

With independence in 1947, the Scindias, along with other royal families, ceased being maharajas. But the deference accorded to former royalty remains. The widow of the last maharaja in Gwalior was the first to become a politician and win a parliamentary seat.

But the three Scindias active today are not on the same side: the family is split between Congress, which controls the national government, and the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Hindu nationalist opposition.

One direct descendant of the last maharaja, Jyotiraditya Scindia. is spearheading the Congress effort in Madhya Pradesh while two others – his aunts – are running for election as BJP candidates in the two states.

Members of the family publicly call themselves politicians rather than royalty, but the power of the Scindia name underscores the persistence of feudal habits in what ostensibly is the world’s largest democracy.

Now that Mr Scindia, 42, is a member of parliament and a minister, having won the seat formerly held by his father, he spends most of his time in Delhi. But when he returns to the ancestral home and strides through his palace, with the Scindia crest of a sun and two serpents everywhere displayed, retainers rush to touch his feet.

The opulence of the palace contrasts with the shabbiness of Gwalior itself, a city where the roads are often poorly paved and dimly lit.

Meanwhile, his younger aunt, Yashodhara Raje Scindia, is running for the BJP in the neighbouring Shivpuri district for one of 230 seats in the Madhya Pradesh assembly. The elder aunt, Vasundhara Raje, also BJP, is hoping to return to her former post as chief minister of Rajasthan, a post now occupied by Ashok Gehlot of Congress.

Yashodhara Raje Scindia, (her New York-educated son at her side) is campaigning on matters such as controlled inflation and clean water and speaks of the benefits the current, well-regarded BJP chief minister, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, has brought to Madhya Pradesh. These include providing bicycles for girls living more than a kilometre from school.

“Every village knows who the chief minister is,” she says, in an indirect jibe at her nephew, who is expected to become chief minister if Congress wins.

As he campaigns around Rajasthan, meanwhile, Mr Gehlot reels off the welfare schemes he has promoted in the local villages, schemes that are similar to those of Mr Chouhan across the state border.

Whatever the outcome of the elections, which will not be known until votes are counted on December 8, it is likely that one or more of the Scindias will win seats.