Where they all talk Congress but many may walk AAP - The Indian Express

Muslims may have been attracted to the Aam Aadmi Party but they wondered about its winnability, and capacity to take on the BJP.

Roam the narrow lanes of the Old Delhi constituencies of Chandni Chowk, Ballimaran and Matia Mahal, where they say it can take up to three hours by rickshaw to cover the 1 km from Jama Masjid to Chandni Chowk, walking is the fastest way of getting anywhere, and shops promising “sherwani, Indo-Western, coat pant, kurta pajama” under one roof have recently added the “Modi dress”, and two things become clear. The Congress, all but edged out of the frame in other parts of Delhi, is visible and in the reckoning here. But this time its challenger is strong.

By all accounts, in the last Delhi election in 2013, Muslims may have been attracted to the Aam Aadmi Party but they wondered about its winnability, and capacity to take on the BJP. The AAP has had to contend with the high threshold for entry of new parties in a first-past-the-post polity but this challenge has been arguably even more daunting, so far, in the Muslim constituency.

Here, Congress candidates are serial winners and larger-than-life figures with established patronage networks.

And you most frequently hear the argument for a “national” party to take on the BJP, in whose regime “bayan baazi”, or communally charged rhetoric, alongside campaigns of “love jihad” and “ghar wapsi”, have already stoked anxieties.

“Just listen to Sakshi Maharaj”, says Shah Faisal, in the footwear business in Ballimaran. “In this colony, you will hardly find someone with a second marriage, or with a large family. Our mindset has changed but they talk of 10-15 children. Let’s compete in business, not in producing children”.

And grizzled B. Koya Kutty, who sells floor mats, throws a question: “Does the AAP have a presence in Tamil Nadu? In Kerala?” They can only wield the broom in Delhi, he says.

Many voters in these parts point to the Congress’s “experience”, insist that “Congress ko raaj chalaana aata hai”. There was corruption in its regime, they may admit, but as Khurshid Ali, who has a small tailoring shop in Ballimaran, puts it wryly: “We also don’t have an option, we can’t vote for an American party!”

Ali believes that the communal violence in Muzaffarnagar and the “honouring onstage of the rioters” in the aftermath, have sounded a warning. He also says out loud a suspicion that has been doing the rounds: that the AAP is being propped up by the BJP to split the “Muslim” or “secular” vote. “It is a B-team of the BJP”, he says. Because “Didn’t many from the BJP sit on Anna’s stage? And hasn’t Kejriwal’s co-traveller Kiran Bedi now gone to the BJP?”

The collapse of the 49-day AAP government, and Arvind Kejriwal’s resignation only deepened this scepticism. As Mohammad Salim, continued…