Outlier Challenge: Can Aam Aadmi Party Do A Delhi Or Punjab In Odisha?

Will the Aam Aadmi Party emerge as a political force in Odisha? The question would flummox many. The BJD is firmly in the saddle and its leader Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik’s popularity has not waned a bit; the BJP has already established itself as the prime contender if and when an electoral shift happens; and the Congress, though much weaker than earlier, still holds on to a loyal vote base. The political space is already crowded and the room for a new party is constricted. Why then bring up the topic of AAP, which is still a fledgling entity in the state and yet to register in the minds of the masses?

Well, if you view elections beyond the routine winner-loser perspective and assess a new party’s overall impact on the results from the point of view of fresh equations it unleashes, the study of AAP becomes interesting. A look into numbers in the recently held Gujarat assembly elections would be instructive. The Aam Aadmi Party secured close to 13 per cent of votes, compared to its vote share of .1 per cent in the previous election. In a primarily two-party state, the Congress was reduced to just above 27 per cent of the vote share compared to 41.4 per cent earlier. The BJP soared to 52.5 per cent. It needs no emphasis that traditional Congress votes shifted to the AAP. The latter also secured a chunk of first-time voters.

In Delhi, Arvind Kejriwal’s party has already marked its own formidable presence carved out of the Congress’s vote bank besides its own support base. In Punjab, it has zoomed to the top beating the Akali Dal, the Congress and the BJP in a matter of years. It’s no mean feat for a party without a massive organisational presence, a host of well-known leaders across states or resources, primarily financial. The party, if experts are to be believed, had to abandon its Himachal Pradesh campaign to focus on Gujarat and municipal corporation polls in Delhi despite having a headstart over the BJP and the Congress, for these reasons. Its campaign against the incumbent BJP, however, helped the latter to register a wafer-thin victory margin in Himachal.

From a non-entity in electorally challenging Gujarat to a game-changer, it took only six months of intensive electioneering for AAP to assert its presence. In the process, it has delivered a debilitating blow to Congress. Can something similar happen in Odisha? As mentioned earlier, the party may not be a winner for a long time, but it can throw the existing equations topsy-turvy by introducing new dynamics.

How? It would be a logical follow-up question. When a party punches above its weight consistently there must be something different about it. To begin with, it has the novelty factor. During interaction with a cross-section of people in a couple of districts, this writer observed curiosity about the party and its leader Arvind Kejriwal. There was a lot of negative opinion too, drawn from partisan television debates and WhatsApp messages. Yet the fact that AAP has been performing so convincingly well against heavyweight BJP in the Capital State of Delhi is a topic of interest to many. Any discussion on national politics eventually veers into that. The Congress doesn’t feature much in the conversation because it offers no interesting talking point. The Left parties are off the radar. The BJP is talked about the most but there is no counterweight to it besides AAP.

Any discussion on state politics dismisses the Congress as a viable challenge to the BJD and BJP. If there must be a third alternative, the consensus is, it has to be a new party with new ideas and fresh faces. There’s obvious fatigue with leaders from the period of late Biju Patnaik’s Janata Dal and late JB Patnaik’s Congress. Many of these once-big leaders are largely irrelevant to the new generation of voters and few carry the heft to be politically impactful now. The fatigue factor is applicable to many leaders of the ruling party too. A new party would have no blemish or ugly baggage unlike parties which have been in power for long. If AAP launches itself in a big way, it might offer the novelty people seek.

While the novelty factor is important to bring in a big chunk of votes, particularly the younger lot, the party is also known to bag protest votes – disgruntled workers and supporters of other parties voting for it – and support of fence-sitters and undecided voters. While the migration of a big block of Congress voters in Delhi, Punjab and Gujarat to AAP is borne out by the vote share numbers, it is also a fact that it has been making minor dents in the vote banks of other rivals too. The AAP’s success lies in its unusual campaign tactics, which is reliant on people contact and intensive. Its performance is usually credited to promises of free electricity, education and health, but it is the street-corner meetings, door-to-door visits, focus on local issues and seeking the voters’ opinion on their choice of candidate among others which do the trick for the party. It’s a low-key but effective strategy which makes up well for the absence of star speakers and funds to splurge.

If it manages to get its act together on the organisational front and finds a credible leader, a 10 per cent vote share in Odisha would not be a pipedream. Then how does it impact the political equation in the state? The numbers may not be enough to offer the party a government, but might be good enough to place it as a disruptor. It’s because the share has to come from the kitty of other parties. As is the national template, the anaemic Congress is likely to suffer the most. The new party would also be a destination for those unhappy with the BJD but won’t back the BJP or the Congress. It could mean a drop in vote share for the former, a spot of bother in tight contests. The gainer is likely to be the BJP. That would certainly make the political scene interesting.

It’s possible we are getting too far ahead of the current reality. The Congress may still stage a comeback; the BJD is hard to replace till Naveen Patnaik is active in politics; and the BJP may choose to bide its time. However, the intrusion of an outlier and the introduction of new dynamics is not pure fantasy. It has happened in other states already. It can happen in Odisha too.