The landslide victory of the Aam Aadmi Party has many reasons, all of which need to be imbibed as lessons for all political parties. While there was a growing disenchantment against AAP when Arvind Kejriwal left the hot seat after ruling Delhi for 49 days, the other parties could not turn that period of political anarchy (AAP ministers going on a rampage and taking the law into their own hands) into capital for themselves by correctly reading the pulse of the people of Delhi. For the aam janta, Kejriwal&’s shenanigans were very much up their alley. They love a man who can make fun of pompous leaders who have lost touch with the hoi polloi, because they have been in power for so long. The citizens of Delhi wanted to vote in one of their own. That person was not Kiran Bedi, who hardly rubs shoulders with the unwashed. It was not Ajay Maken, who comes from privilege. It was Arvind Kejriwal, whose body language is the common man&’s and whose life, as was shown on television cameras, was indeed, simple.

When NDTV carried out its “Down with VIP culture campaign”, 68 AAP candidates signed up for it. About 42 Congress candidates and 38 BJP candidates also signed the petition. This is an interesting connect. The citizen is fed up with VIP culture where those elected by the people begin to distance themselves from the very people post-election. In fact, even what they represent individually or as a group in Parliament and the assembly is hardly what concerns common people. We see this happening in all the states. Many of our legislators and members of Parliament are also businessmen. Isn’t this a clash of interests? Will those MPs/MLAs not be more concerned about protecting their business interests than the interests of the common man?

Meghalaya is a classic example of coalmine owners becoming MLAs/MPs and then guarding their selfish interests, even though those interests hurt the environment and large numbers of people.

Also, since there is so much sleaze in the higher echelons of the political ladder, other institutions, including the law enforcers, also indulge in blatant corruption.Who will check them when the political masters themselves have so much to hide? The ban on coal mining in Meghalaya by the National Green Tribunal has turned the state into a lawless territory where cops doing their duty and stopping trucks carrying coal illegally are murdered by their own colleagues.

Within a week there had been two incidents of anarchy by truck drivers on the Shillong-Guwahati highway. They burned down the weighbridge and offices of the departments related to coal transport. The second time they stopped all vehicles from moving and turned violent after being held up for several hours on the highway on the pretext of their coal being weighed and documents checked.

Meghalaya is a Congress-ruled state. We see the syndrome of VIPism, non-governance and corruption, all of which are intrinsic Congress cultures. The Congress has been conditioned, over the years, to believe that it alone can give us secularism and a socialist form of governance — both words were inserted into the Preamble of the Indian Constitution by Indira Gandhi in 1978. In Assam, the Congress and its three-time chief minister have often projected a sense of invincibility.

One example of taking people (or rather animals for granted) is that of forest minister Rockybul Hussain, under whose watch the largest numbers of rhinos were killed in Kaziranga but who continues in the post as if he is indispensable. This attitude may make the Assam Congress pay heavily in the 2016 assembly polls.

The BJP, which had registered a credible win in Assam in the parliamentary elections, is now on the backfoot. But that is entirely the BJP&’s fault. The lunatic fringe of the BJP led by sadhvis and sadhus and some rabidly antiMuslim parliamentarians have been doing much damage to the party. Their outrageous claims at the Indian Science Congress in Mumbai that all scientific wisdom resides in the Hindu texts, then their attacks on churches and schools, the Ghar Wapsi programmes and RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat&’s stating that this was the time for Hindu Rashtra to have its day have all added to the disillusionment of the electorate — not just in Delhi but across the nation.

And now that people have seen how the AAP magic works they feel empowered to demand their rights from those who seek to represent them. In fact, AAP has set the trend for people to set the agenda for politicians and not viceversa. The AAP manifesto is a people&’s manifesto. The BJP manifesto, on the other hand, was replete with errors and called the North-east people in Delhi “immigrants”. It is difficult to imagine that a party that got it so precise in the Parliament elections would be reduced to one whose vision statement is not even revised and edited by senior, knowledgeable party bhakts like the suave and articulate Nalin Kohli. How could those who drafted the vision statement be so ignorant as to not know the meaning of the word “immigrant”. The BJP apologised but during elections people can be very unforgiving. The result of that unpardonable lapse is before us, although North-easterners may not make a sizeable chunk of voters in Delhi!

In Assam, I surmise that the likes of Akhil Gogoi, who already are inclined to the AAP and have the anarchic tendencies of Kejriwal (no one could miss his sleeping on the road over the BJP faux pas), would soon mobilise the poor along the lines of the party and begin the process of promising freebies to people in Assam if AAP is elected. If Akhil Gogoi captures Assam, we can be sure that the illegal encroachers on forest land closer to Guwahati would be legalised. This is the problem with political populism!

For the AAP, the honeymoon with Delhi on Saturday, 14 February, was another day. After Kejriwal and his cabinet colleagues took oath and the victory cries had ended, the task of governing Delhi began. Kejriwal will have to deliver and quickly. Voters, especially those who have lived on the fringes of development and those voting for change, are usually impatient by nature. Kejriwal has promised over half a million people a roof over their heads. This is no easy task. In fact, the common citizen who voted AAP is the one who has been harassed in his/her day-to-day life and who is made to run from pillar to post and pay inflated water and electricity bills.

This is the constituency that must now be addressed. People voted for change in the last parliamentary elections, too. Hence they have judged the Modi government and its performance in the last seven-eight months and have found it wanting. As they say, the election results in Delhi are also a sort of referendum on the Central government.

It will be interesting to see how the drama unfolds for the Congress-ruled states of the Northeast, especially those heading for assembly polls, after this humiliating decimation of the party in the Delhi elections. Assam will be a test case!

The author is editor, The Shillong Times and member, National Security Advisory Board.