THE DELHI VERDICT: A vote against neo-liberalism?

It was a pleasant surprise anti-fascists like me and even for the AAP leaders such as Yogendra Yadav . There were many celebratory or congratulatory messages all over the social network for the AAP which swept 67 of the 70 seats in the Delhi Assembly. In parallel , I came across some BJP leaders reacting by claiming that this time,their vote share acquired in the 2013 assembly elections has been kept intact at 32 percent and that the AAP has only eaten into the vote bank of the Congress. This contention did look convincing to me for a moment.

Still , I wanted to find out what had led to the meteoric rise of the Aam Aadmi within a span of 15 months from the last assembly elections.  Some newspapers categorically stated that Arvind Kejriwal's positive and spirited campaign highlighting local issues such as water, electricity and his meticulous efforts at changing his 'anarchist' image had been very successful among the Delhiites. Some other reports unanimously stated that Narendra Modi's approach of targeting Kejriwal's politics during his campaign rather than discussing Delhi's issues , the BJP's rejection of the 'benevolent' Harsha Vardhan's candidature for Chief Minister in favour of Kiran Bedi , the Sangh's attempts at reconversion through Ghar Wapsi campaign had proved counter productive for the BJP juggernaut. The above factors , to me looked like reasonably explaining the public acceptance of AAP as a fresh viable alternative to the banal ,desperate politics of the BJP-Congress legacy.

Why the 'neo liberal' angle ??

Soon , I could not but help comparing the present Assembly verdict with that of the Lok Sabha polls held in May 2014. I was surprised to find that the BJP had won 46 Percent of the Delhi votes in comparison with 32 percent accumulated by the AAP. That signifies a 14 Percent drop in the vote share of BJP in the current polls. This fact almost nullified the BJP's claims that the AAP had grown only on the fallow lands of the Congress and not on theirs.

Now I have a question  as to why did the BJP lose 14 percent within a short span of 9 months since the formation of the new government at the Centre ? Narendra Modi , as predicted has been continuing to live up to the expectations of a strong Prime Minister , single minded in implementing economic reforms unbending to the whims and fancies of his allies and the opposition. He has been perceived as being very dynamic in dealing with the international powers of the West , in beckoning the Indian diaspora to invest in their homeland , in speaking boldly on issues of sanitation and in cleaning India to Godliness through his 'revolutionary' Swachh Bharat campaign. Some sections of Indian middle class believes that the Modi- led BJP is a complete antithesis to the corrupt , ineffective and bureaucratic Singh- led UPA government. So why was the BJP trampled down in the Delhi polls ??

Let me look at the performance of the NDA from another perspective.  First,the NDA was instrumental in clearing the UPA's plans of increasing FDI in the insurance sector , a move which was opposed by them when they were in the opposition. Second, the Cabinet has been pressing its Environment Ministry hard to dilute the Forest protection laws so as to remove all legal and bureaucratic procedures hindering faster acquisition of mineral and forest wealth for private purposes. This was also a continuation of the policy of the erstwhile government. In the diesel price deregulation issue , the present Government gleefully accepted the baton from the outgoing one and completed the UPA's  run. Very recently the Modi Government accepted a weak Nuclear Liability agreement with the U.S which exempts the foreign nuclear suppliers of all liabilities in the event of a nuclear catastrophe. This was another UPA initiative that met with vehement resistance from  the BJP when it was in the opposition. Modi 's celebrated Smart Cities programme inevitably hinges upon the ordinance on LARR that amends the act by dismissing the need for Social Impact Assessment before acquiring land for any purpose thereby trashing the need to obtain consent from the affected families occupying the land. The NDA government well aware of the pathetic condition of Indian agricultural sector that has witnessed  the suicide of 2.5 lakh farmers over the last 20 years , has instructed the state to set a cap on Minimum Support Prices on agricultural products and to reduce state procurement of food grains.

Have the educated urban intelligentsia of Delhi taken note of the fact that the new government is faithfully following the path laid out by the previous disgraced Government and sometimes for carrying out unpopular decisions,  is exploring newer ways of circumventing the democratic procedures to favour corporate oligarchs imperiling the interests of the common people? Have they understood that the aforementioned actions of the Government comply fully with the prescriptions of neoliberalism ?  Does the 14 percent drop in vote share of the BJP reflect that ?

Or have the Indians traditionally for the last 20 years been changing governments fully cognizant of the merits and demerits of neoliberalism and its socio economic impact ? Have they realized that there is no politics without economics? Have they been aware of the fact that a few months ago ,Kejriwal had stated in a CII meeting that ' The government should have no business in business'?