Delhi results will likely weaken the INDIA bloc

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which was struggling to replicate its remarkable Lok Sabha performance in Delhi at the assembly level for a long time, has finally succeeded.

- Hilal Ahmed

The party has now established itself as the dominant player, both in terms of vote share and its conversion into seats, in Delhi. However, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)'s respectable vote share (43.57%) underlines its strong base in Delhi. The party was also able to force the BJP to refashion its electoral campaign. That was the reason why civic issues and service delivery became the most debated electoral concerns in Delhi. The Congress also accepted this framework of politics almost uncritically. The results underline three crucial political trajectories, which will reshape the contours of political discourse in the country.

First, the political class has accepted a model of governance that I call the charitable State model. This model is based on the premise that the task of the State is to build the capacity of its citizens to survive in the market-dominated economic sphere. The welfare schemes offered by the BJP, the AAP and even the Congress in these elections demonstrate that welfare is no longer seen as a civic right: It is packaged as schemes to highlight a kind of political benevolence.