NEW DELHI // A year after it relinquished power, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is edging ahead in the race to govern India’s capital, according to voter surveys.
In the final week of campaigning ahead of the February 7 election, a poll conducted by TNS Global projects the AAP to win between 36 and 40 of the 70 seats in the Delhi legislature.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will win between 28 and 32 seats, according to the poll, which surveyed 3,260 people last week. The results were released on Tuesday.
Another survey, conducted by Nielsen, predicts that the AAP will win 35 seats and the BJP 29; a third, by an agency called C-fore, projects between 36 and 41 seats for AAP and between 27 and 32 for the BJP. In all of these surveys, the Congress trails a distant third.
The election results will be announced on February 10.
A win for the AAP will signal the first serious electoral setback for the BJP since Narendra Modi led the party to a sweeping victory in last summer’s parliamentary election, winning himself the post of prime minister.
In contrast, a win in Delhi for the AAP would be a revival of sorts after it won just four of the 432 parliamentary seats it contested.
In the Delhi elections held in December 2013, the AAP won 28 seats – three fewer than the BJP, but enough to form a government with the outside support of the Congress.
However, the AAP’s leader, Arvind Kejriwal, stepped down from the chief ministership after 49 days, accusing the Congress and the BJP of blocking his efforts to pass anti-corruption legislation.
Delhi has been in a state of political limbo ever since; in the absence of a government, it has been ruled by its lieutenant governor, an appointee rather than an elected official.
During this campaign, Mr Kejriwal has been a model of contrition.
“Many people in Delhi feel that our actions have let them down,” he said in an open letter released on Sunday.
“In May … we apologised to the people of Delhi for the disappointment caused, and in case you missed it the first time, I do so again – so you hear us loud and clear,” Mr Kejriwal wrote.
“I can promise you the following: I will not quit. Period.”
The apology has played well with some voters. “It isn’t often that a politician in this country admits to his mistakes and sincerely offers to do better,” said Meena Lal, who works as a maid in a south Delhi residential colony.
Ms Lal, 43, voted for the AAP in December 2013, but decided she was done with the party after Mr Kejriwal stepped down last year.
“The apology really softened my heart,” she said with a laugh. “So much so that I now want to vote for him again.”
Pradip Datta, a professor of political science at Delhi University, attributed the AAP’s continued popularity to a perception among Delhi’s poor that the party would work for their benefit, as opposed to the BJP, “which is seen to be looking after the interests of the rich and the middle class”.
Mr Kejriwal has emphasised stability of governance, in addition to his party’s strong anti-corruption stance, while the BJP is banking on Mr Modi’s appeal and his promise of rapid economic development.
With the AAP’s popularity growing more evident, the BJP has brought Mr Modi into the campaign. In between handling national affairs, the prime minister has addressed three Delhi election rallies in four days.
On Tuesday, at a packed rally in north Delhi, Mr Modi mocked the AAP, calling it a “temporary party”, referring to its relative youth. (The AAP was formed in November 2012.)
“Delhi needs people with experience to govern them,” Mr Modi said.
The BJP has also alleged that the AAP received donations from questionable companies.
“There are companies which are fake. They do not have management,” Piyush Goyal, a BJP leader and the country’s power minister, said on Monday,
Mr Kejriwal has challenged Mr Modi’s government to investigate the allegations and is calling for an investigation into the campaign finances of all major political parties.
“Please punish me if anything wrong is found,” he said.
The BJP, he added, “has pressed the panic button”.
ssubramanian@thenational.ae
