#dnaEdit: What Delhi needs

Former IPS officer Kiran Bedi’s entry into the Bharatiya Janata Party has put the Delhi polls yet again on the national centre stage. Her entry comes just as the Aam Aadmi Party’s headstart in announcing candidates, the BJP’s uncharacteristic delay in distributing tickets, and the baton of the Congress landing on Ajay Maken’s lap appeared to have altered political equations ever so slightly. After eight months of helming the central government, the BJP can no longer rely on the overwhelming anti-incumbency sentiment against the Congress that propelled it to the single largest party status in the last assembly polls and sweep of all seven Delhi Lok Sabha seats. The AAP does not enjoy the novelty factor anymore and its achievements from the 49 tumultuous days in power are a mixed bag sullied by the stigma of having abdicated responsibility. For the Congress, the ignominy of being shunted to an unceremonious third place in two successive elections after 15 uninterrupted years in power has sapped both cadre and leadership of confidence and vitality. With no party having a definitive edge unlike in the Lok Sabha polls, it is unclear yet whether developmental problems, which the capital city has no dearth of, or the preference for political personalities like Modi or Arvind Kejriwal or Bedi will decide which way the voter leans.

Sounding the poll bugle, PM Modi took an uncharacteristic route singling out Kejriwal for scorn and criticism. Modi’s promise of affordable housing and power portability to Delhiites was lost in the attempt to portray Kejriwal as undependable and an anarchist. Central governments have an Achilles’ heel when it comes to Delhi elections. Unlike other states, the administrative control over Delhi Police and the primary land department (Delhi Development Authority) are vested in the Union home and urban development ministries. During the December 16 protests, it was the Delhi Police and the central government, rather than the Sheila Dikshit government, which faced the agitators’ ire. Subsequent protests, helmed by AAP, against the Delhi Police for not lodging FIRs on complaints from citizens zeroed in on this structural anomaly of unaccountability to the elected state government. However, the chastened AAP, which is now cloaked in an avatar of moderation, has refrained from upping the stakes. With Bedi focussing on women’s safety as the primary concern and her track record as an upright police officer, the AAP is in danger of surrendering the initiative.

Today, Delhi is an unplanned agglomeration of unauthorised colonies, regularised colonies, resettlement colonies, urban slums, cooperative group housing societies and DDA flats. Over half the population lives in unplanned colonies and slums on DDA land. Delhi politicians regularly claim that the DDA has let down Delhi but, till date, none have articulated an alternate planning paradigm. Meanwhile, air pollution levels are unsustainable, ground water is depleting, the Yamuna has been reduced to a drain, home rents are increasing, and traffic is worsening despite the Delhi Metro service. Such issues could possibly find play in the impending Bedi-Kejriwal clash. Both have a fine understanding of Delhi’s problems, having worked in civil society among the poorest localities after stints as public servants. Where Bedi will trump Kejriwal is in administrative experience besides being a known face among Delhiites for nearly four decades. The independent streak that led a wary political leadership to deny her the rightful chance to serve as Delhi Police Commissioner and her involvement in the Anna Hazare-led anti-corruption crusade give her the same anti-establishment aura that Kejriwal lays claim to. Delhi is under the sway of a clutch of unconventional politicians, but can they usher in new paradigms of governance and development?