BJP panicked when Modi rally failed, started making mistakes, says Yogendra Yadav

Aam Aadmi Party strategist and ideologue Yogendra Yadav tells Neha Lalchandani how he was taken aback by the party's final tally though they had been confident about a majority. It was careful planning and BJP's errors that made it possible, he says.

You predicted a maximum of 57 seats for AAP. Were you surprised with the result?

In all fairness, we were the closest among all exit polls on the final result. On a serious note, we had no idea that our lead would be 22%. Our survey had showed a lead of 18% which we scaled down to 13%. However, there was a gap of one week before our survey and polling. We were sure of a majority but that we would get 67 seats completely surprised me. Exit polls not only scaled down our vote share but were also very conservative when converting that to seats.

What worked in AAP's favour that got you 67 seats out of 70?

Almost everything worked in our favour. We started with a vote share of 33% against BJP's 46%. We were also carrying the burden of history. Experience says that within one year of a Lok Sabha election where the result is so adverse, a Vidhan Sabha election is not likely to be very different. There have been only a couple of exceptions to this situation. Evidently then there was no one factor that helped us.

The party has been thanking BJP for its victory. What did it do to help you?

Their first form of help was delaying the elections. Had they held them in July/August, I cannot say how AAP would have fared. Both parties were completely unprepared at that point of time but at least they had the advantage of a hugely successful Lok Sabha election. When it became clear, AAP started a campaign saying that BJP was delaying holding an election. This worked and put BJP on the backfoot. The next mistake by BJP was to try and make this a ' Narendra Modi vs everyone else' election. By December-end, our internal surveys showed we had a clear lead over BJP. This is something even they were aware of. This got them worried, and once the Modi rally at Ramlila Maidan failed, they went into panic mode and made one mistake after another. They brought in Kiran Bedi when they knew they were failing. She was brought in precisely to take blame for the loss.

Why do you think Kiran Bedi failed?

Kiran Bedi was actually a good choice. We also had surveys done to see how others scored in front of Arvind and found that in popularity she was the closest to him. However, what BJP did not anticipate was the extent of internal discord. It also did not know her. How she conducted herself was for everyone to see.

What did AAP do to improve its chances?

We started by building an organization. Led by Ashutosh, our team put in place a massive organizational structure at the booth level. This is traditionally how BJP has functioned. Congress on the other hand has never had such a structure on ground. Secondly, we came up with Delhi Dialogues. While nobody may read our manifesto, the fact that we had undertaken such an exercise communicated to the people that AAP was serious about development work. BJP on the other hand seemed to completely lack a plan for Delhi. Another major work we did was to find candidates and declare them early on. In several cases, the prospective candidates had been given signals a couple of months before their names were declared so that they could start work on ground. We also consolidated our support among the urban poor.

BJP continued to claim even after the exit polls that they were getting above 30 seats. On what were they basing this claim?

I am not sure. In fact, when they made this claim after the exit polls showed us much ahead, it got me worried that they may have rigged the polls.

What impact do you think AAP turning down Imam Bukhari's support had on people?

It worked in two ways. First of all, no political party has ever been able to take such a stand on secularism. Muslims have moved away from people like the Imam who claim to be representatives of a particular community. Had we taken his support, we would have lost not just the Hindu vote but also the Muslim community's vote.