An AAP volunteer. Reuters
On Monday evening, AAP Maharashtra tweeted: The corrupt fear us, the honest support us, the heroic join us.
Around the same time, at least one professional number cruncher was tweeting that AAP candidates would win in Mumbai South, Mumbai North-East, Nagpur, Baghpet, Gurgaon, etc.
Heroic psephology, no doubt, since to say that AAP supporters are getting ahead of themselves would be terribly understating the situation.
Doubtless, candidates such as Ashutosh (from Chandni Chowk, Delhi) and Yogendra Yadav (Gurgaon) can expect to do very well, possibly emerge victorious. Chandni Chowk because that election may not veer from the trajectory set by AAP in December's Assembly election and Gurgaon because the Yogendra Yadav is currently the most widely respected AAP leader.
But to prematurely proclaim victories in multiple constituencies where the parties of the candidates who won and finished second in 2009 have not even declared their candidates is foolhardy and dangerous.
Let's look at some examples.
Mumbai South, is represented by a two-time Member of Parliament now also Union minister of state. Milind Deora is no mass leader with years of rousing speeches and millions of fawning followers who will vote for him blindly.
But look at the numbers from the 2009 election:
Deora polled 2,72,411 votes. The Sena's Mohan Rawle, a sitting MP then from a pre-delimitation neighbouring constituency, polled 1,46,118. The decisive blow, apparently, had been dealt by the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena's Bala Nandgaonkar who took a huge chomp out of the Sena vote share, polling 1,59,729 votes. Nandgaonkar went on to be elected shortly thereafter as an MLA and remains one of the most prominent MNS leaders in parts of Mumbai South that have a large Marathi voter base.
Meera Sanyal polled 10,154 votes and any South Mumbaiite will tell you that nothing has changed for Sanyal since 2009 -- with the exception of the AAP stamp on her nomination forms.
The other candidates, a whole cricket team of them and then some, don't account for very much, barring the BSP's 'diesel don' Mohammed Ali Shaikh, a rumoured mafia-man with alleged control of a large diesel smuggling racket off Mumbai, who polled an incredible 33,000-odd votes. To predict Sanyal's victory -- even assuming that the AAP umbrella will be a force multiplier for her -- without accounting for these others, without even knowing if Nandgaonkar will contest, who the Shiv Sena will field, whether the BJP manages to wrest that seat as they currently hope to for a builder-MLA who will most likely swing the businessmen/Marwari/Gujarati votes in the constituency, takes a special kind of bravado. Or blindness.
That would be the story in arguably every other seat. In Mumbai itself, Medha Patkar, to contest from Mumbai North-East, is being pegged a winner in a seat held by the NCP's Sanjay Dina Patil. Even assuming a crippling anti-incumbency, the numbers do not add up.
Patil polled 2,13,505 votes, marginally ahead of Kirit Somaiya's 2,10,572. The MNS's Shishir Shinde (also elected an MLA in October 2009 and a hugely popular candidate tipped as a possible first MP for the party this year) polled 1,95,148. A BSP candidate won over 29,000 votes.
Even assuming the anticipated outpouring of support for her in the slum swathe of Mankhurd, Mandala, Shivaji Nagar, Trombay, etc, all localities where Patkar's Ghar Banao Ghar Bachao Aandolan has an impressive history of grassroots activism, working closely with residents, supporting them through multiple demolitions and anti-encroachment drives, there is considerably less support for her in the nouveau riche suburbs and the rash of new housing societies.
Ghatkopar, with its Gujarati population, will be rooting for the BJP's Kirit Somaiya if he contests from there again.
The other winner predictions are even more perplexing. 'Shoe-thrower' Jarnail Singh? And HS Phoolka, expected to win in Ludhiana only on the platform of justice for the victims of 1984? By that logic, all Shiromani Akali Dal candidates are to emerge victorious this election.
Kejriwal has told the Economic Times that he has taken issue with his party for contesting 300-350 seats, that he is not in politics for power and that the party should not be in electoral politics for the prospect of numbers but to keep out the tainted.
That translates into playing effective spoilers against candidates they consider corrupt, not exactly the all-winning-horses claim that some senior party members, self-anointed psephologists and the mob of party men would have us believe.
Meanwhile, the party is also facing unseemly allegations from ticket-seekers that are de rigueur for the established political parties. Arun Bhatia, former IAS officer and long-time anti-corruption crusader, having been overlooked for a ticket from Pune despite being asked by party seniors to apply online, is one of the disgruntled lot. There is "no difference between the Congress, BJP, NCP and AAP," he told The Indian Express. He alleged that his letters to Kejriwal demanding that Prashant Bhushan be removed from party posts until the controversy over plots in Noida allotted to him are investigated were behind him being denied the ticket.
AAP's Pune candidate will be the lesser-known Subhash Ware. Another AAP ticket aspirant was realtor DS Kulkarni, also reportedly miffed at being ignored. Bhatia, one of those associated at the very start of the India Against Corruption movement, will likely contest as an independent.
In 2009, DS Kulkari polled 62,981 votes, Bhatia polled 30,340. Fragmenting the anti-corruption vote, and there may be such a thing in Pune where the Congress was handed its worst ever defeat in the municipal elections in 2012 following a campaign planned by Suresh Kalmadi when he was still in jail, can only benefit the candidates Kejriwal is railing against.
Given that the party's policies on various issues are still so amorphous, that AAP candidates will speak in incongruent voices once campaigning starts is also likely. From Medha Patkar to Meera Sanyal, the idea of the ideal might differ violently, even if both agree on clean politics and transparency and a graft-free India. The former banker, incidentally, addressed a student gathering in Mumbai earlier this month where she said she believes the BJP and Congress have both indulged in wasteful policies, including subsidies. Hardly in one voice with policies central to Kejriwal's shortlived government in Delhi.
AAP's strategy is interesting, to locate candidates with a familiarity among voters, individuals who have a personal brand value and social standing. But this is hardly the first time such candidates are in the fray. Their lack of success is well documented.
For AAP this year, there is Jiya Lal, a scientist, in Uttar Pradesh's Lalganj constituency, currently held by the BSP's Bali Ram. Educationist Khalid Pervez will contest from Moradabad, represented by former cricketer Mohammed Azharuddin. Peasant leader Yogesh Dahiya will be the AAP candidate for Saharanpur in UP, held currently by the BSP's Jagdish Singh Rana. There is also Alok Agrawal, the longtime associate of Medha Patkar and anti-dam activist from Madhya Pradesh who is to contest from Khandwa. Whatever its claims about a different politics, AAP appears to have paid at least a passing glance at caste and community equations, but that may not be enough.
In the final analysis of the 20-odd names released as its first list of candidates then, there are more duds than winners. Given, we don't know where some of the big guns will fire from. Kejriwal, Sisodia, Shazia Ilmi (rumours of her contesting against Sonia Gandhi continue to do the rounds) and Sanjay Singh have not announced their plans.
But these are the top three or four AAP leaders we know and have heard. Who are the other big names? If the first list of 20 candidates is anything to go by, AAP is facing a challenge to find credible candidates.
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