Roughly six months back, when Arvind Kejriwal announced he would contest the Delhi polls from the very seat Sheila Dikshit filed her nomination from, a collective sigh of exasperation rang across the country. The unanimous conclsion was that this would be a gimmick that would cost the AAP dearly. Now, one successful debut election later, AAP has formed the government in Delhi, and is being touted as the party most metros would want to vote for in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
The party's public image has most definitely been on a climb nationally since the Delhi elections. And the year's first Lok Sabha poll survey seems to be reflecting the party's turning fortunes by hinting that almost half the voters in the country's metropolises want to see AAP also form a government. In a poll conducted across Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune and Ahmedabad by market research agency IPSOS for The Times of India, 44 percent of the respondents have said that they would like to see an AAP government at the Centre.
TOI states:
"The survey found that a third of the respondents thought AAP would win between 26 and 50 seats, another 26% felt it could win 51-100 seats, 11% said it would bag more than 100 and 5% even predicted a majority for the party. Put together, that means three-fourths of all those polled believe AAP will win more seats in 2014 than any party, barring what Congress and BJP won in 2009."
Narendra Modi and Arvind Kejriwal. Agencies.
However, the same voters were not too sure about Kejriwal's ability to run the country and hence voted for BJP's Narendra Modi as the Prime Minister of India. A whopping 58 percent of voters wanted Modi as the PM, while Arvind Kejriwal got 25 percent of the vote. Rahul Gandhi hardly registered on the radar, garnering just 14 percent votes.
However, the TOI editorial admits that the survey might have its set of limitations. Firstly, the sample size of respondents - about 2000 people - was small and was concentrated on the 18-45 age group, which is mostly in awe of AAP.
However, the response proves one thing. That while AAP is mostly on track with its Lok Sabha poll campaign. Given that voter sentiment in metros is roughly similar and hence can be addressed in the same idiom that Delhi was, the AAP already has a successful template ready to be followed in the other cities.
AAP has launched a strong social media campaign in Mumbai in the same vein, backed by popular youth figures like musician Vishal Dadlani and TV personality Raghu Ram. AAP spokespersons and grassroots leaders in Delhi are mostly young enthusiasts with activist streaks - they were the ones giving bytes to TV reporters and propelling the campaigns on Twitter and Facebook.
The party's top leadership - a motley blend of journalists, academicians, former bureaucrats - with their informed, almost university activist-like approach has traditionally found it easier to break the ice with the middle class, urban voting population. It will not be too difficult for them to repeat the same in other metros. However, an election can only be won by winning over the millions in rural India with whom the AAP leaders will not be able to immediately strike a chord with. The realities of their 'aam aadmi' is strikingly different from what AAP's version of 'aam aadmi' comes across as. For them, it isn't the bijli bill that matters, the unavailability of bijli is what they are faced with.
Accordingly, like we reported on Firstpost, the AAP is already on the way of launching a strong campaign targeted at the most deprived sections of ailing states like Bihar and Madhya Pradesh. On the other hand, they have decided to maintain the same public outreach strategies in metros that helped them win the polls in Delhi. Economic Times reports: "One radio ad, some on-ground campaigns and aggressive social media activity was all that the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) did to build its brand during the Delhi assembly elections in 2013. And it plans to use the same strategy for the upcoming Lok Sabha (LS) polls."
Soumik Mukherjee of Firstpost reported how the AAP is targeting the Bimaru states with its awareness campaigns. AAP seems to have zeroed in on the most economically and socially deprived section of voters in the said states. "In Bihar, we will be focusing on 14,000 villages where the population is less that 200. Hardly any development has taken place in theses villages. We will try take them along in our stride," says the AAP source.
But what this also shows is that the BJP might have got its finger in the wrong pies. The party is still hoping that their anti-Congress rants coupled with the star power of Narendra Modi will help them sail through the polls.
It is only after the success of AAP in Delhi, that they have reworked their youth connect strategy. Recently, they announced the recruitment of youth ambassadors in colleges to help reach out to the youth. Their social media campaign is almost always hijacked by uninvited fans who then populate the internet with filth, abuse and disable any dignified political debate.
The youth ambassador recruitment, evidently, will take its own course and will not happen overnight. Also, 5,000 ambassadors are expected to reach out to 20 lakh youth. With time running out of hands, the BJP needs an immediate overhaul of its youth outreach strategy. At least in the states AAP is planning to sink its teeth in.
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