New Delhi: At a time when the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is learnt to be exploring the option of contesting the 2025 Delhi assembly elections with Prime Minister Narendra Modi as the face of its campaign, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has zeroed in on Union home minister Amit Shah as its principal political adversary in the run-up to the polls.
Over the past fortnight, the party, in power in Delhi, has made it evident that a key aspect of its campaign will be centred around the “failure” of Shah in handling the law and order situation in the capital, where the police are under the purview of the Centre.
The AAP, unlike many smaller parties, has never pulled any punches in making political attacks against Modi and Shah. But what is likely to set its poll campaign apart this time is the party’s near singular focus on Shah, unlike in the past when Modi was the primary target.
“The basic idea is to generate a conversation on law and order and wean away focus from issues for which the AAP government can be held responsible. Also, pitting (AAP national convenor and former Delhi chief minister Arvind) Kejriwal against Modi is not a good idea, considering the popular appeal that Modi continues to have,” an AAP leader told ThePrint Thursday.
Behind the strategy is also the party’s calculation, as told by a senior AAP functionary, that juxtaposing Kejriwal’s affable image against Shah’s “gruff persona” may not be a bad idea after all.
The party believes that while Kejriwal draws support from the working class and lower-middle class, Shah has no connection with those sections, particularly in Delhi—a contrast that may be politically beneficial if highlighted.
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Targeted attack
It was on 20 November that the AAP began targeting Shah.
On that day, Delhi CM Atishi held a press conference, questioning the “absence” of Shah from the city at a time when “shooting, extortion and murders have become routine”.
“And he is busy campaigning in Maharashtra and Jharkhand?” she said.
A week later, on 27 November, Kejriwal took up the cudgels against Shah, holding the latter responsible for Delhi becoming the “crime and extortion capital”. The former Delhi CM also reminded people that law and order in Delhi come under the Ministry of Home Affairs, headed by Shah.
With Kejriwal setting the tone, there has not been a single day in the past week when the AAP has not targeted Shah.
On 28 November, the AAP national convenor released a “crime map” of Delhi listing the crimes that have occurred in the recent past in the national capital, saying women and traders are the two groups “living in the greatest fear today”.
“If he (Shah) is unable to keep a 20-km radius area around his own residence safe, then how will he ensure law and order in the rest of the country? For instance, a 28-year-old police constable named Kiran Pal was stabbed to death on 23 November in Govindpuri, which is only 13 km away from Shah’s residence,” Kejriwal said at a press conference.
The next day, the AAP took the campaign against Shah to Parliament, fielding its MPs to stage a protest in the House premises against the “deteriorating” law and order situation in Delhi.
“It was our responsibility to educate the daughters, and we did so, but it was Amit Shah’s responsibility to protect them, but he refuses to even address this issue,” AAP’s Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh told reporters at the protest site.
Singh also submitted a notice under Rule 267 in the Rajya Sabha demanding an immediate discussion on the issue.
It’s not just protests and statements, though. To corner Shah, Kejriwal has also been visiting the victims of various crimes and their families. For instance, on 30 November, he met the family of an elderly man who was murdered at his house in upscale Panchsheel Park in south Delhi, while the next day he visited the victims of two shootings in Tilak Nagar market.
On Wednesday, speaking in the Delhi Assembly, Kejriwal launched a no-holds-barred attack on Shah, alleging that Delhi’s law and order situation had collapsed under the latter’s watch.
Incidentally, in none of these statements did Kejriwal target the PM, whom he has earlier described as a “coward and psychopath”.
The AAP supremo dialled down his rhetoric against Modi after the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, in which his party drew a blank in Delhi, finishing even behind the Congress in five out of seven seats.
After tying up with poll strategist Prashant Kishor, Kejriwal rebranded himself as a mild-mannered, family man focused on solving people’s issues.
The strategy paid dividends in the 2020 assembly polls in Delhi, which the AAP swept, decimating the BJP and the Congress for the second time in a row. It also won Punjab subsequently.
The last two years, however, have been most challenging for the party as its top leadership, including Kejriwal, became embroiled in allegations of corruption related to a now-withdrawn excise policy.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)