How to survive a zombie outbreak while campaigning for Lok Sabha.

Quick thoughts on Kejriwal's resignation.

Well if wishes were horses, beggars would ride, more importantly if wishes were Alison Brie, engineering students would be very happy. That however, is not the point of the post.

When I wrote about solving Saint Kejriwal, I was also wishing for the possibility however feeble of averting the scenario of Kejriwal launching an aggressive campaign for Lok Sabha.

Of course Kejriwal being a shrewd political operative made the same calculation, and was going to do everything to escape from the facing scrutiny for governance, and he did just that successfully.

He is being mocked by BJP supporters, and it is possible he might amount to nothing. still I remain wary of the potential for damage that Kejriwal possess to Narendra Modi's juggernaut.

To understand this, one must understand the dynamics underpinning AAP meteoritic rise. It is simply this, urban population, in particular middle class, is outraged at the political class including, not without justification, mired in culture of civic and political ignorance, Kejriwal provides two functions. The more familiar role, is of hope, of promise to deliver from the morass. The less recognize role is that of outlet for catharsis, for venting out all the frustration and  anger that middle class has against "the system".

Kejriwal's main purpose was never to govern, or to eliminate corruption. His aim as far as 2014 Lok Sabha elections are concerned, is to undercut BJP as much as possible, either resulting outright in third front government or a weak BJP government which will hopefully collapse before its terms.

Kejriwal plan is to wage an aggressive no holds barred campaign against Modi in order to undercut him. In that he hopes to channel above mention anger of middle class to build and sustain momentum of his campaign.

Is there any way to mitigate the damage that Kejriwal may cause to BJP campaign, in my view there are six ways to do this.

1. To employ Arnobspeak, Modi must never ever, ever ever engage with Kejriwal mano-o-mano, that will allow Kejriwal to draw Modi in a personal contest, to Modi's disadvantage in my view.

2. Modi should de-emphasize corruption as issue. That will expose BJP's flank to attack by Kejriwal. BJP supporters may argue till the cows come home that Gadkari and Yeddyurappa are not guilty. However in elections popular perceptions matter and as far as public perception goes BJP is as guilty of Congress as Congress.

3. Modi must emphasize his credentials as outsider to Delhi Durbaar. Modi's campaign should run a below the radar campaign silently delinking himself from the intrigues and shenanigans of Delhi leadership

4. He must put development at centre of his campaign. He must convince middle class that growth should the first priority for the next government.

5. If corruption is BJP vulnerability, capability and stability are its strong points.  Even though Modi campaign shouldn't make personal attacks on Kejriwal, it must weaken Kejriwal by emphasizing importance of stable ad capable government. Middle class should be scared with prospect of havoc caused by unstable and inept government at the centre. This has the advantage that performance and capability are achilles heels for Kejriwal.

6. Last BJP should try to subvert Kejriwal campaign from within by waging war of attrition. Whenever Kejriwal is mentioned in the news cycle it should be about the conspiracies and brinkmanship like binny episode within his campaign. The time Kejriwal spends on firefighting within his campaign, is the he can't damage Modi's campaign.

How do you solve a problem like Kejriwal (Updated)

Update at the end

At the end of this post I had cautioned about the remote possibility of Kejriwal playing spoilsports. Well with the Delhi elections the possibility just got less remote. The surprising turn of events culminating in Arvind Kejriwal taking oath as Chief Minister has dramatically altered the possibilities for Lok Sabha.

In a nutshell Arvind Kejriwal has become the great secular hope. Our sec-lib establishment which is desperate to stop Modi juggernaut has come around to view Kejriwal as its champion. For them such a drastic turnaround in their view has a simple logic, Kejriwal appeals most to urban middle class voters, which used to be core constituency for BJP and more importantly Modi must attract if he hopes to upstage Delhi Sultanate. For the establishment then, the calculation becomes straightforward, more Kejriwal is successful in convincing urban voters, less likely Modi is to be at the helm of the things.

The problem for the BJP in my view is that the assessment of establishment seems correct. Anecdotal evidence suggests that even normally apathetic and apolitical middle class is warming up to Kejriwal. Kejriwal, and his network of highly motivated volunteers can leverage their strong online presence to quickly scale up their political operations at the grassroots and hence convert positive perception for Kejriwal into votes.

Ofcourse this will not convert into many Lok Sabha seats for Kejriwal at such a short notice. But it will undercut BJP votes which is the main aim of establishment and I suspect Kejriwal.

Going forward, strategy for establishment media is going to be simple, wall to wall positive coverage of Kejriwal (accompanied by incessant negative coverage of BJP), similarly expect Kejriwal to reserve and direct his strongest attacks on Modi and BJP.

Which brings us to our main concern, how should BJP tackle Kejriwal. I am afraid that in terms of immediate action, there is hardly anything BJP can do. The reasons behind Kejriwal's appeal to middle class is his status as political neophyte as well as his open contempt and disdain for political system and process, both of which resonates with middle class. It is clear BJP being on wrong side of both the issues, can not hope to convince the disenchanted middle class.

Luckily though, BJP has a crucial ally, his name is Arvind Kejriwal.

Currently middle class is smitten with him, however as the quotidian reality of governance sinks, the untenable nature of blatantly populist policies of Kejriwal will gradually become clear to middle class and hopefully its fascination with Kejriwal will wear off.

Both Kejriwal and Congress realize this. I am reasonably sure that as a countermeasure they are looking for "martyrdom" of Kejriwal. Congress will withdraw support from Kejriwal on some pretext or other. It will not endear Congress to middle class, however at this point Congress has reconciled itself to middle class voting against it. Crucially for Congress, such a "martyrdom" act by Kejriwal will further boost his popularity among the middle class.

BJP can foil this strategy by deploying "liquid oxygen". In a famous Ajeet joke, the villains asks his henchman "Raabert" to throw hero in "liquid oxygen", reasoning, liquid will not let the hero live and oxygen will not let the hero die. This is exactly how BJP should proceed.

First the oxygen, BJP should promise that it will play role of constructive opposition, further it should promise then if Congress withdraws support on any flimsy grounds, it will not vote against Kejriwal government.

Now the liquid part, BJP should do its utmost to keep pressure on Kejriwal, by questioning and exposing the harebrained schemes of Kejriwal and Gang, by subjecting each and every step of Aam Aadmi Party to intense scrutiny, and publicizing every shenanigans to middle class.

And hope that middle class will wake up from its dream.

Update: As always I forgot one minor point, by denying Kejriwal his "martyrdom" act and keeping heat on him, BJP can ensure that Kejriwal remains pinned to Delhi and is unable to cause any nationwide damage.